Calcutta HC restraints Bengal from paying monthly stipend to sacked non-teaching staff
On June 9, Justice Amrita Sinha had reserved the judgement in the matter but had stayed the state government's plan to provide monthly stipends of Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 to the persons.
In its Friday order, the court reinforced that restriction, prohibiting such payments till at least September 26.
Sinha issued the direction on a writ petition challenging the provision of the allowance to the staff whose services had been terminated. The petition was filed by a candidate on the waitlist who was not recruited despite being on the merit list, allegedly due to irregularities in the hiring process.
On April 3, the Supreme Court upheld the 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 was earlier. However, it did not grant relief to the non-teaching staff, or Group C and Group D employees, whose appointments were also cancelled.
In response, the state government had announced in April that the sacked non-teaching staff would receive a monthly allowance until the Supreme Court delivered a verdict on its review petitions.
On Friday, the High Court criticised the state for attempting to financially assist individuals whose employment had been declared fraudulent by the Supreme Court and directed 'tainted' candidates to 'refund any salary/payment received', Live Law reported.
By introducing a stipend scheme, the state was undermining the Supreme Court's decision, the High Court observed.
'Once the highest court of the land has decided the issue of illegal appointment conclusively and opined that the appointments were result of fraud, no person who was the beneficiary of a fraudulent act of the statutory authority ought to be provided any support, that too, from the public exchequer,' the court said.
The court also instructed the state government to submit its counter-affidavit addressing the petitioners' claims within four weeks, and allowed the petitioners two weeks after that to file their response, PTI reported.
In April 2024, the High Court had passed 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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