Calcutta High Court directs CBI probe on saving illegal appointments in recruitment scam

In September, applications were made before the Court for supernumerary posts to be created for those whose appointments were subsequently found to be invalid

The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe into the identity of the person filing an application before the Court for ‘saving illegally appointed persons’. In September this year, applications were made before the Court stating that supernumerary posts be created to accommodate those whose appointments were subsequently found to be invalid, in order to ensure that there was no loss of jobs.

“The CBI is to file a report as to the origin of the instruction or the decision for filing of such an application within a period of seven days before this court. I further direct CBI to take immediate steps from today evening itself to start the investigation to know whose brainchild is this, i.e., saving the illegally appointed persons. We must know it to burst out the racket of corruption,” Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay said in the order.

Describing the illegal appointments as “organised crime”, Justice Gangopadhyay observed that a large number of genuine candidates were still unemployed.

The Court directed Manish Jain, the Principal Secretary to the Government of West Bengal to appear personally tomorrow (November 24) at 10:30 a.m. ”to give reply to some questions to be put by this court as to the filing of such an application”. In the order the Court clearly stated that such an application was not the brainchild of the West Bengal School Service Commission.

The Court rejected the submission of the Chairman of the Commission which stated that when such an application had been made on behalf of the Commission, the onus was upon him and he would take responsibility for such an application. “But as I have already held that this is a ‘Benami’ application putting the Commission in front of the court and some other persons are pulling the strings, I hold that the Chairman’s responsible statement of taking responsibility for this application is not acceptable to the court. We have to find out who took the decision at all,” the order said.

Thousands of cases of illegal appointments have come to the fore at different stages of recruitment of the Commission. While the State government had indicated that it would not like anyone to lose their jobs, the CBI in the charge-sheets have named those who illegally secured jobs, as the accused in the scam.

The recruitment scam had rocked the politics in West Bengal over the past few months with half a dozen key officials and former Education Minister Partha Chatterjee behind bars, for their alleged involvement in the scam. Justice Gangopadhyay had directed a CBI probe in about a dozen instances over the past one year, in matters relating to the recruitment scam.