Calcutta HC asks why ‘tainted' candidates in alleged recruitment scam are being allowed to reapply
West Bengal's school education department published a gazette notification on May 30 regarding the fresh appointment of assistant teachers in upper primary, secondary and higher secondary classes in government-run and government-aided schools, The Hindu reported.
Justice Saugata Bhattacharya on Tuesday asked the government why there was 'no express bar to debar the tainted candidates from applying' in the notification.
'This is troubling me…the Supreme Court has said tainted candidates will not be permitted; where is such indication in [state's] notification...let the issue be sorted by filing a clarification before the SC,' the judge said, according to Live Law.
The counsel for the state government urged the court not to make any remarks on record, and claimed that the fresh appointments were being carried out in line with the Supreme Court's directions. The state government sought time to clarify the matter, after which the court adjourned the case to a later date.
On April 3, the Supreme Court upheld the Calcutta High Court's April 2024 order terminating the appointment of about 25,000 teachers and non-teaching staff by West Bengal's School Service Commission. The bench passed the order after observing that the recruitment process was 'vitiated by manipulation and fraud'.
The top court on April 17 permitted 'untainted' teachers to be retained until the end of the academic year or until fresh appointments are made, whichever is earlier. However, it did not grant relief to Group C and Group D employees, or non-teaching staff, whose appointments were also cancelled.
In April 2024, the High Court issued its direction on the termination of the appointments based on the findings of a re-evaluation of the Optical Mark Recognition sheets from the 2016 recruitment examination in the case.
The re-evaluation found that the selected teachers had been recruited against blank Optical Mark Recognition sheets.
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Walkers edged out Where footpaths exist, shopkeepers and occupants of adjacent properties encroach on them. While street vendors are the most frequently blamed, more physical damage is done by parked vehicles and two-wheelers taking shortcuts. A retired civil engineer from Delhi said road-owning agencies sometimes deliberately raise the height of footpaths so cars and two-wheelers can't climb them. In safeguarding footpaths from illegal parking, they also make them inaccessible to pedestrians. Apart from policies to promote NMT, many cities, such as Delhi (2019), Bengaluru (2021), Pune (2016), and Ahmedabad (2023), have formulated parking regulations. Delhi's policy on walkability, which was also notified in August 2019, has strong elements of parking reforms, but there's little to show in progress. Subterranean chaos Urban roads are more than just traffic facilitators. They support eight infrastructure networks: water, drainage, sewerage, electricity, piped gas, optical fibre, streetlights, and traffic surveillance, said Srikanth Viswanathan, executive director of Jana Urban Space Foundation. The drains and sewer lines under the footpath often leak, backflow, or hit dead ends, damaging the surface. Multiple agencies control underground pipes, making it difficult to pinpoint faults. Dug-up footpaths are not only a walking hazard, but the unending road-cutting and repairs also alter the original design and dimensions of footpaths for good. Formulated in 2011, Jana Urban Space Foundation's Tender S.U.R.E. (Specifications for Urban Roads Execution) guidelines offer solutions. They suggest utilities below be arranged in underground corridors with easy access points, that lane widths be uniform, and that financial sustainability be achieved through joint tendering and the prevention of road cutting. 'While the first Tender S.U.R.E road, built in front of UB City (an upscale high-rise complex), was privately funded, we have since had five successive chief ministers across three political parties supporting the guidelines. Today, Bengaluru has over 100 kms of such roads and footpaths, all funded by the state government,' said Viswanathan. According to Jana Urban Space, more than 250 km of Tender S.U.R.E. roads and footpaths are under various stages of implementation across 18 cities in five states in India, including Karnataka, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Assam. Beyond engineering Viswanathan said that instead of leaving roads to civil engineers, who focus on moving motor vehicles and not people, city administrations must give the job to urban designers, who can incorporate citizen-centricity and environmental considerations. However, very few cities have attempted to bring urban designers on board. In 2017, the Pune Municipal Corporation made a head start by creating an urban design cell and hiring professionals under its urban street design programme. Unfortunately, Lokre said, the initiative stopped when the top officials moved out. In March this year, the Maharashtra government announced a plan to establish urban design cells in all urban civic bodies. While the primary goal of these cells would be to preserve cultural and architectural aesthetics, it is hoped that street design will eventually be included in the mandate, and urban designers will get hired on a permanent basis. Change management and continuity Successful policy implementation requires alignment among administrators. Shekhar Singh said that in Pimpri Chinchwad, the 'urban streetscaping' projects are progressing because three consecutive commissioners have maintained momentum from planning to execution. But it is not dependent on commissioners alone. Cities must have a strong team with the right people to maintain institutional memory. So, last year, PCMC set up an urban mobility department with a dedicated budget. Led by a joint city engineer, it includes transport planners, urban designers and multiple experts. Additionally, to fund Harit Setu, a flagship project to promote the 15-minute city concept and connect all facilities through walking and cycling infrastructure, PCMC on June 10 listed its green municipal bond on the Bombay Stock Exchange and raised ₹ 200 crores. PCMC successfully raised ₹200 crore through the green bond, which was oversubscribed 5.13 times. In Punjab, the Road Traffic Institute Centre was established in 2022 under a high court order. It collaborates with 12 agencies to enhance walking infrastructure throughout the state. Acknowledging that 'bureaucratic hurdles sometimes slow down progress,' Punjab's traffic adviser and the centre's director Navdeep Asija emphasised that institutions such as this help maintain continuity. For now, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and SAS Nagar-Mohali have been identified as the 'demonstration sites', where 120 kms of arterial roads once fixed will provide the template of 'walkable streets' to the rest of Punjab. While several districts, including Patiala and Jalandhar, have adopted the Right to Walk policy, the overall state-level draft still awaits legislative approval. Mukti Advani, a principal scientist at the Central Road Research Institute, stressed the need for evaluations in policy, budget, and infrastructure to identify gaps and enhance user satisfaction. Such audits, she said, will highlight gaps and help authorities improve. The IRC guidelines suggest a walk score to assess the pedestrian experience, considering factors such as traffic volume, shade, streetlights, security, walking surface, encroachment, public amenities, and accessibility features. Chennai's example Chennai was India's first city to adopt a non-motorised transport (NMT) policy in 2014, with the mandate that 60% of transport funds would go towards street transformation. Between 2014 and 2019, Chennai invested an average of ₹72 crore annually in footpaths. It created over 170 km of pedestrian-friendly infrastructure. But the pace slowed down when the city shifted its focus to stormwater management to address frequent flooding, pointed out Aswathy Dilip, director South-Asia at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). Between 2022 and 2025, footpath spending dropped to just ₹13 crore per year on average, with a modest recovery in FY 2024–25 to ₹25 crore. 'This was also when the city consistently spent ₹84 crore annually on road resurfacing and carriageway upgrades—highlighting a continued vehicle-centric bias,' she pointed out. But there's been a renewed push: This year alone, the city has committed an investment of ₹200 crores for developing 170 kms of complete streets. Dilip also highlighted a lack of coordination among departments, leading to issues like dismantling footpaths without restoration during stormwater drain upgrades. However, the Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority, established in 2010 but becoming active only a decade later, has emerged as a platform for coordinated action across multiple agencies and jurisdictions, said Dilip. The impact of these changes will be visible over five to ten years. A national push Just as sanitation, toilets, and other civic upgrades have been prioritised on the national agenda, Viswanathan sought a similar effort for urban roads. 'Change will not happen at the local level; we need senior-level political support to scale up these projects, similar to what occurred in Karnataka.' Ultimately, the goal should be to normalise pedestrian infrastructure and regard it as a fundamental civic responsibility that the administration must deliver in every town and city. 'Creating a walkable environment is not something civic bodies should seek praise for,' said Shekhar Singh. 'Our aspiration should be to make this process as routine as constructing a bitumen road, that is to create a standard template which becomes a rule for every engineer to follow.'
