Calcutta HC restrains Bengal govt from giving financial assistance to non-teaching school staff who lost jobs

The Calcutta High Court restrained the Bengal government from giving monetary aid to jobless non-teaching school staff till September 26.

According to news agency PTI, the Calcutta High Court restrained the West Bengal government on Friday from implementing a scheme till September 26 to provide monetary support to non-teaching staff who lost their jobs following a Supreme Court judgment that held the selection process tainted.

The judgement came days after the court had on June 9 reserved judgment on the petitions, which opposed the payment of ₹25,000 each to Group C and ₹20,000 each to Group D employees, who lost their jobs on the Supreme Court order, by the state.

Nearly, 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staff  were rendered jobless after the Supreme Court had on April 3. upheld a 2024 Calcutta High Court judgment – annulling the recruitment of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff appointed through the 2016 School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment drive.

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The court had termed the entire selection process "vitiated and tainted".

The West Bengal government then introduced a scheme to provide "limited livelihood, support and social security on humanitarian ground" on temporary basis, subject to orders of any competent court, to distressed families of non-teaching staff in Group C and D categories, who were recruited through the 2016 selection process conducted by the West Bengal School Service Commission.

Now, in an interim order, Justice Amrita Sinha restrained the state government from giving any effect or further effect to the scheme for providing monetary relief to the non-teaching staff till September 26 or until further order, whichever is earlier.

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The irregularities in the 2016 recruitment test came under public scrutiny in May 2022, after the Calcutta High Court directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the appointment process for both teaching and non-teaching staff (Groups C and D) conducted by the West Bengal School Service Commission and the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education.

The alleged irregularities occurred between 2014 and 2021, during the tenure of Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee as the state’s education minister.

(With inputs from PTI)