SC raps WB school service commission, says intentionally covered up lapses

The Supreme Court on Thursday pulled up the West Bengal School Service Commission ( WBSSC) saying it "intentionally" covered up the lapses and illegalities in the appointment of 25,753 teachers and staffers in state-run and state-aided schools. The scathing remarks came from a bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar in its judgement by which it annulled the appointment of 25,753 teachers and staffers.

Authoring the judgement, the CJI said despite the factual background and the credible evidence indicating irregularities the "WBSSC initially did try and cover up the lapses and illegalities".

The CJI went on, "The cover up itself has made the verification and ascertainment more difficult or rather impossible given the scale of camouflage and dressing up done at each stage. We are convinced that the entire selection process was intentionally compromised due to the illegalities involved."

The top court upheld the Calcutta High Court's findings on illegalities in the selection process on 17 counts.

The high court said OMR sheets were destroyed without the scanned mirror images being preserved on the commission's server.

Appointments higher than the declared vacancies were given with respect to all four categories and to persons who were not even in the panel, it added.

The high court said candidates who submitted blank OMR sheets were appointed aside from those selected after the expiry of the panel of candidates through SLST-2016.

The top court, in its verdict, noted that the WBSSC was candid enough to admit "(i) rank jumping, that is, to say candidates having lower rank were preferred over those having higher rank, (ii) out of panel appointments, that is, candidates who are not in the panel of shortlisted candidates have been recommended and appointed, (iii) candidates who were not recommended by WBSSC were appointed by the Board, and (iv) manipulation of the OMR scores".

However, it said, there was discrepancy in both the number of candidates and their corresponding percentages where such irregularities were identified.

The bench said as the recruitment process was ongoing even after the one-year validity period of the panel, there was no justification for the destruction of the OMR sheets.

"It is apparent that the time period specified in Rule 21 was coinciding with the time period specified for the validity of the panel. Further, WBSSC did not maintain the mirror copies of the OMR sheets in their computer/records. Thus, the destruction of the physical OMR sheets and the failure to maintain scanned/mirror images of the OMR sheets are significant factors which were rightly taken into consideration by the High Court. We concur," the top court held.