Kolkata, June 9 A single-judge vacation bench of the Calcutta High Court, on Monday, refused to conduct an urgent hearing of the petition challenging the May 30 notification of the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSCS) to fill vacant posts of teachers in state-run schools.
The vacancies were created following the cancellation of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching jobs by the Supreme Court in April this year.
The petition was filed claiming that in the fresh notification, WBSSC has brought some major changes in the recruitment norms existing in 2016. The entire panel of 2016 was cancelled first by the Calcutta High Court last year, and then by the Supreme Court in April this year.
However, the single-judge vacation bench of Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya observed that there is no necessity for an urgent hearing in the matter, and for the time being, the recruitment process should continue as it is.
However, he observed that the court will look into the matter if any complications arise in the due course. The matter will come up for hearing again in July after the summer vacation.
The main ground on which the notification was challenged was that the weightage criteria in the distribution of total marks were changed from what was followed in 2016.
As per the new notification issued last week, the written examination in the fresh recruitment process will carry 60 marks, as against 55 for the 2016 panel.
Secondly, the weightage criterion for educational qualification in the fresh recruitment process is just 10 as against 35 for the 2016 panel.
Most importantly, two new weightage criteria, each carrying 10 marks, 'past teaching experience' and 'lecture demonstration', have been introduced in the new recruitment process.
In the petition, it was contended that while the two new weightage criteria were introduced to give an advantage to the teachers from the 2016 panel, who lost their jobs, at the same time, the changed criteria will be disadvantageous for the fresher candidates.
On April 3 this year, the Supreme Court’s division bench of erstwhile Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar upheld a previous order by the Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Justice Debangshu Basak and Justice Shabbar Rashidi cancelling 25,753 school jobs in West Bengal.
The apex court also accepted the observation of the Calcutta High Court that the entire panel of 25,753 candidates had to be cancelled because of the failure of the state government and the commission to segregate the “untainted" candidates from the "tainted" ones.
The state government and WBSSC had already filed review petitions in the apex court on this issue.
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