Calcutta High Court stays Mamata govt's monetary assistance to Group C and D job losers

The interim stay will prevail till September 26.

Justice Amrita Sinha said in her order as quoted by The Telegraph, "Once the highest Court of the land has decided the issue of illegal appointment conclusively and opined that the appointments were results 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."

In a massive judgement, the Supreme Court in April cancelled appointments of nearly 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staff by the SSC upholding the Calcutta High Court's order.

The top court passed the order after the SSC failed to provide two separate lists of deserving and undeserving candidates after the government faced corruption allegations in the recruitment process.

A top court bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said the selection process was "vitiated and tainted by fraud".

In April 2024, the Calcutta High Court had cancelled recruitment of nearly 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff in government-sponsored and government-aided schools, dismissing the entire 2016 teacher recruitment panel.

The panel was constituted by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC).

Erstwhile state education minister Partha Chatterjee, former primary education board president and Trinamool MLA Manik Bhattacharya, youth leader Kuntal Ghosh are among the people who were arrested so far in connection with the scam.

Former Calcutta High Court judge and now a BJP MP, Abhijit Ganguly had ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged irregularities in the recruitment process.