Kolkata, June 20 In a major jolt to the West Bengal government, a single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court on Friday put an interim stay restraining the state government from making payments under a scheme for providing stipends to the non-teaching staff who lost jobs following a Supreme Court order in April.
The interim stay would be in force either till September 26 or till the time the court gives any further direction in the matter, ruled the single-judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha.
Justice Sinha ordered this interim stay acting on a petition challenging the decision of the state government to pay stipends to non-teaching staff, in Group-C and Group-D categories, who list their jobs following the Supreme Court order earlier this year.
On Friday, Justice Sinha directed the state government to file an affidavit in the matter within the next four weeks. At the same time, she directed the petitioners to file affidavits on their part within 15 days after the state government filed its affidavit.
Political observers feel that, in a way, the interim stay is a major jolt to the state government. However, they added, the development will also provide an opportunity for the state government and the ruling Trinamool Congress to start their usual campaign that their noble initiative to provide financial relief to the job-losing non-teaching staff was stalled because of the court's intervention.
“At the same time, following the interim stay, the state government gets a temporary relief from spending a huge sum of money from the state exchequer,” said a city-based political observer.
Last month, the West Bengal government issued a notification announcing the new scheme under the state Labour Department. Under the "West Bengal Livelihood and Special Security Interim Scheme”, the job-losing Group-C staff would be entitled to a monthly stipend of Rs 25,000, while those in the Group D category would be entitled to Rs 20,000 monthly.
Announcing the launch, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the scheme was planned under the state Labour Department because of the tendencies of some people and vested interests to file public interest litigations at the Calcutta High Court against any decision of the state government.
However, legal challenges could not be avoided following successive petitions filed against the said notification.
On April 3, the Supreme Court upheld the Calcutta High Court order that annulled 25,753 school appointments made through the WBSSC, observing that the panel had to be scrapped entirely due to the authorities' failure to distinguish between "tainted" and "untainted" candidates.
The state government and the WBSSC have since filed review petitions in the Supreme Court seeking reconsideration of the order.
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