The Supreme Court on Friday set aside a direction of the Calcutta High Court to the West Bengal Board of Primary Education to conduct fresh selection for 32,000 teachers before the end of August.
A Bench of Justices JK Maheshwari and K.V. Viswanathan requested the High Court to decide the pending appeals in connection with the school jobs-for-cash scam case, to which the recruitments are allegedly linked, as early as possible.
“This a matter relating to selection and appointment of a large number of assistant teachers, we hope and trust that such controversy ought to be decided at the earliest. Therefore, we request the High Court to expedite the writ appeal,” the court observed.
The Bench accepted the contention raised by the West Bengal Primary Education Board that it would not be possible to complete the selection of such a huge number of teachers by August.
Trouble for the Board started with a Single Bench of the High Court directing the termination of the teachers and ordering fresh selection to held within three months.
A Division Bench had given partial relief by staying the termination of the teachers.
The Board argued in the apex court that since the termination was stayed, it was not reasonable to go ahead with the fresh selection process. The teachers separately argued that they were not heard in the High Court.
The High Court had criticised the commodification of jobs and slammed the magnitude of the corruption as the candidates were allegedly found not to have appeared for the compulsory aptitude test.
