In an affidavit filed in the Calcutta High Court on Friday (22nd December), the West Bengal State Service Commission (WBSSC) has admitted ‘irregularities’ in the recruitment of 8611 employees in State-run schools.
It conceded that rules were violated in three exams that were conducted in 2016 for the recruitment of teachers for Std 9-10, appointment of Group C employees and appointment of Group D employees.
According to a report by ABP Ananda, OMR (optical mark reader) sheets were manipulated for the appointment of 2823 employees in the Group D category. About 170 people were given jobs directly without issuing recommendation letters.
Around 3800 employees were recruited in the Group C Category through fraudulent OMR sheets while 77 were given jobs directly without issuing recommendation letters.
At the same time, 907 people were appointed as teachers for Std 11 and 12 through OMR manipulation while 39 got jobs by jumping ranks. About 183 people jumped ranks and were appointed as teachers for Std 9 and Std 10. Around 972 candidates got jobs as teachers through OMR fraud.
All you need to know about the SSC scam
The West Bengal Teacher’s recruitment scam, more commonly referred to as the SSC scam, looks into the recruitment process conducted through the State Level Selection Test (SLT) conducted by SSC from 2014 to 2016.
The West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) announced in 2014 that teachers would be hired at state-run schools in West Bengal through the State Level Selection Test (SLST), which is when the alleged scam first surfaced.
In 2016, the hiring process got underway. At that time, Partha Chatterjee was the Minister-in-Charge of the West Bengal Department of Higher Education and School Education. Nevertheless, a number of complaints were submitted to the Calcutta High Court citing irregularities in the hiring procedure.
The petitioners alleged that many examinees who got lesser marks ranked high on the merit list. Several claims also surfaced regarding the receipt of appointment letters by some applicants who weren’t even on the merit list.
In a separate, but related instance, the Bengal government had in 2016 sent the School Service Commission (SSC) notification for the hiring of 13,000 Group D staff in government-run or aided schools.
Interestingly, the tenure of the panel responsible for said recruitment expired in 2019, but several petitioners alleged that recruitment had taken place despite the expiry of the panel’s tenure and as many as 25 persons were allegedly appointed by the WBBSE.
However, when the case came up for hearing, the petitioners alleged that not 25 but over 500 people were appointed after the SSC panel’s expiration and were now receiving salaries from the state government.
Soon a CBI probe was launched in the case following an order by the Calcutta High Court bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay. The court ordered the agency to interrogate the former chairman of the SSC advisory committee, SP Sinha, and other former members of the panel.
The court had asked the CBI to file a report after interrogating the former members. In April 2022, the CBI also registered an FIR against West Bengal Directorate of School Education former deputy director Alok Kumar Sarkar and unidentified officials of the SSC.
In May 2022, the Central Investigation Bureau (CBI) filed an FIR against West Bengal Education Minister Paresh Adhikari and his daughter Ankita Adhikari. The case was registered after the father-daughter duo skipped the CBI summon deadline that was set by the Calcutta High Court. Adhikari was summoned for illegally recruiting teachers in government-aided schools and also for allotting a job to his daughter despite her absence from the merit list.
As a part of the inquiry into the money laundering aspect of the SSC recruiting scandal, ED, in July last year, raided Partha Chatterjee’s premises and arrested him for swindling money worth crores in the form of bribes taken during his tenure as the state education minister. Several TMC ministers have since then been arrested for their alleged involvement in the multi-crore scam.