The verdict by the Calcutta High Court on Monday on the school recruitment scam in West Bengal is a landmark judgement. The Court cancelled the 2016 School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment panel for state government-run and aided schools. In one fell swoop, the Court cancelled nearly 26,000 appointments, many of which were obtained by bribing state officials, including ministers, to secure jobs in schools as teaching and non-teaching staff.
In the 2016 State Level Selection Test (SLST), around 23 lakh job aspirants sat for the tests for over 24,000 jobs. But once recruitment started there were innumerable complaints of irregularities of candidates bribing officials to secure their job by overtaking those ahead of them on the list. In fact even those who submitted blank answer papers during the test secured jobs as assistant teachers in primary schools. This they did by bribing the concerned officials in the West Bengal Education Department. There were also complaints of candidates who did not clear the SLST to have secured jobs. On Monday, the court asked the candidates who had submitted blank sheets to return with interest the salaries they have earned illegally.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has been investigating the case, the Enforcement Directorate too has been conducting raids. It is in the SSC scam that the nation watched with horror as piles of cash tumbled out of the closets of former Bengal Education Minister Partha Chattopadhyay and his friend Arpita. Both have been arrested. Several arrests have been made in the case, most of them of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders. The ED has seized assets worth nearly Rs 400 crores. The Calcutta High Court on Monday asked the CBI to investigate the case further.
The latest judgement came from the division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md Shabbar Rashidi, and is a validation of the extraordinary courage shown by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay to pursue the case and order a CBI probe into it. Abhijit Gangopadhyay has retired from the judiciary since then and is now fighting the Lok Sabha elections as a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party from Tamluk constituency. Monday’s verdict would have silenced those questioning Abhijit Gangopadhyay’s integrity as a judge when he presided over the case—much before he retired from the judiciary and joined the BJP. In fact, it would not be wrong to say that but for Abhijit Gangopadhyay’s refusal to bow down to pressure from certain quarters, and the courage that subsequent judges showed, the matter would have been covered up.
The biggest tragedy of the SSC scam is that thousands of young job aspirants have wasted eight long years of their lives even after clearing the recruitment examination. They have been sitting on protest in the heart of Kolkata for years and it’s only now that they are able to see some light at the end of the tunnel. The need of the hour is to provide justice to them. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee should have taken the High Court verdict as a cue and tried to do a course correction. She should have accepted that her party people had erred, and said that she was ready to make amends. There is no running away from the fact that there is a mountain of evidence against her party and administration in this case. But then accepting that she could be in the wrong, perhaps does not come to Mamata Banerjee easily.
So she is promising to go to the Supreme Court to get the High Court verdict overturned. An angry Mamata Banerjee on Monday went to the extent of accusing the Calcutta High Court judges of being compromised and dancing to the tune of the ruling BJP at the Centre. Such irresponsible rhetoric does not behoove leaders holding constitutional posts. To say the judiciary is politically motivated isn’t just irresponsible, but also amounts to contempt of court, apart from raising questions on the very foundations of Indian democracy. Whatever Mamata Banerjee may be saying, the fact is, whoever be the judge to have presided over the SSC recruitment case, has been appalled by the malpractices involved.
Of the many types of corruption, the worst is the one that affects the common people directly—corruption that cheats innocent citizens out of their life’s savings and pauperises them, as we have seen in many chit fund cases in the past. Similarly, any job scam affects the future of the youth, killing their hopes and dreams and destroying their lives. This is what the accused in the SSC scam are guilty of—playing with the lives of Bengal’s youth.
In such a situation, will it be too much to expect some empathy from the Chief Minister of the state? But then even in the case of Sandeshkhali, Mamata Banerjee was seen as unresponsive and busier shielding her party people than giving justice to the women who said they had been abused by TMC Shahjahan Sheikh and his men. Mamata Banerjee’s popularity may or may not be affected either because of Sandeshkhali or the SSC case, but can she afford to let the perception grow that there is a lack of accountability in her administration? Governance should be above partisan politics. Instead of challenging the High Court verdict, the Chief Minister should ensure that all the qualified candidates get their due, immediately.