School job case: Calcutta HC directs WBSSC to sack key official immediately
Kolkata, Jan 22 (IANS) A single-judge Bench of the Calcutta High Court on Monday directed the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) Chairman to immediately sack one of its key office-bearers for facilitating his wife in illegally getting a teaching job in a state-run school.
The Bench of Justice Biswajit Basu not only directed the WBSSC to sack its regional chairman (western zone) Sheikh Sirazuddin but also asked the state administration to initiate immediate proceedings against him after taking him into custody.
It is learnt that Sirazuddin’s wife Jasmin Khatun appeared for the written examination for recruitment as a teacher in 2011, the panel for which expired in 2016. However, she got her appointment in 2019 and it was alleged that her husband played a key role in getting her that job in an illegal manner.
Recently, the Calcutta High Court’s Special Division Bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Shabbar Rashidi, which is constituted to specially hear the matter related to the multi-crore cash-for-school-job cases in West Bengal following an instruction from the Supreme Court of India, too, observed that appointments in state-run schools given to candidates enlisted in expired panels of WBSS will not be valid.
The Bench also observed that the services of the candidates being appointed from the list of an expired panel will ultimately have to be terminated.
This is applicable for both teaching staff in the secondary and higher secondary level as well as non-teaching staff in the Group C and Group D categories.
To recall, following an earlier order of the Calcutta High Court, WBSSC withdrew appointment letters of many candidates on the same grounds. A section of the candidates challenged that at the Supreme Court. However, the apex court returned the matter back to the Calcutta High Court, following which the Special Division Bench was constituted to hear the matter on a fast track basis.