Mita Mukherjee

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a special leave petition (SLP) against appointing 14,052 assistant teachers at the upper primary section (Classes VI to VIII) of state-aided schools in Bengal.

The SLP was filed by some job applicants seeking review of an order of Calcutta High Court issued in August that directed the state School Service Commission (SSC) to recruit the assistant teachers for upper primary classes, almost eight years after the job seekers had written the tests.

A division bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud refused to “entertain” the SLP on Friday.

The Supreme Court had said in a previous order in September that there were no obstacles to recruiting the assistant teachers. Following the September order, the SSC published the panel and started the recruitment process. There was a fresh plea against the hiring.  

Dismissing the fresh plea to stall the hiring, the Supreme Court on Friday said: “ We are not inclined to entertain the special leave petition under  Article 136 of the Constitution. The special leave petition is accordingly dismissed. Pending application, if any, stands dismissed.”

A division bench of Calcutta High Court headed by Justice Tapabrata Chakrabarti on August 28 had directed the SSC to prepare and publish the final merit-list so that the shortlisted candidates could be appointed to the 14,052 posts.

After the high court issued its order in August some “unsuccessful candidates” had filed a petition against the hiring of the teachers in the 14,052 vacant posts but the high court had struck down the plea.

According to sources in the commission, the process of counseling for recruitment of teachers started in October.

The recruitment of the 14,052 teachers will be the first appointment of teachers of government-aided institutions in Bengal after eight years.    

Though the job applicants had written the tests eight years ago, the appointments of the 14,052 candidates had to be kept on hold because of a series of petitions filed by some candidates against the selection process citing irregularities.

But the high court in its order in August had said: “This court directs the Commission to prepare and publish the final merit list and prepare the panel ….. in accordance with law within a period of four weeks from date”..

On the basis of an order of the court, the commission in October last year had announced that it would hold counselling of all the applicants whose names are in the merit list. But the commission could not issue the appointment letters following petitions by some candidates pointing out irregularities in the selection process.

Reacting to the Supreme Court order, Bengal education minister Bratya Basu said that the state government had said it before that the government was hopeful that legal complications would be resolved and there will be no problem in appointing the teachers.

“We hope we will also be able to resolve the problems relating to the recruitment of teachers for Class IX and X and XI and XII,” Basu said.

MP and senior lawyer Kalyan Banerjee who represented the state government in this case said the “unsuccessful candidates” have repeatedly tried to stall the recruitment. “ The Supreme Court has made it clear in its observations that this kind of repeated interference in the recruitment process is not appropriate,” Banerjee said.

Also read: Supreme Court to review tax exemption for teaching nuns and priests