Within hours of the Calcutta High Court directing the West Bengal School Service Commission to publish the names of illegally appointed teachers post 2016-17 school services examinations, the SSC on Thursday made public the names of 183 “ineligible” teachers working in various schools of the State.
The names of the teachers were posted in the SSC website and were likely to be published in the newspapers too, sources said adding about 80 per cent of the illegal appointees who had “purchased” their appointments for lakhs of rupees taught subjects like mathematics, life science, geography, literature, etc. for the past 5-6 years.
The publication of the names of illegal appointees comes a day after the Central Bureau of Investigation investigating school level recruitment scam all at SSC, TET and Group D and C levels told thecourt that they had thus far been able to find out 952 appointees who had obtained their jobs by paying hefty amounts to authorities.
The SSC and TET scam has already seen former Bengal Education Minister and once number two in the State Cabinet Partha Chatterjee, ex-TETchairman Manik Bhattacharya and many other senior functionaries including a sitting University Vice-chancellor going to jail.
The Court on Thursday told the SSC to act fearlessly and help ininvestigation as the “big rat” would soon be caught.
Thousands of empaneled candidates who had appeared for teaching and non-teaching jobs in primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary level in 2013, 2016-17 have been sitting on dharna for the past couple of years in demand of justice.
They allege that thousands of candidates secured jobs through illegal means by paying cash to the tune ranging between `5-25 lakh depending upon the grade of posts. While reporting on the modus operandiof the scam the CBI said the irregular appointees had been asked to submit blank OMR sheets in some places or write their papers with pencils. These papers were filled up subsequently.
In other cases the candidates who had fetched low ranks were subsequently given higher marks either at the interview level or through some other means. Curiously enough thousands of allegedly manipulated OMR sheets —- which are normally preserved for future reference — were later destroyed.
Apparently creating bigger mess the State Cabinet subsequently ordered the formation of about 1900 supernumerary posts to accommodate the eligible and impaneled candidates — without terminating the jobs of the irregular appointees.
A petition was filed on behalf of the Commission seeking the HighCourt order to allow appointments in the supernumerary posts. The Court took cognizance of the petition and directed the CBI to find out the person under whose instructions the petition was filed.