WBSSC job row: Govt law officials scrutinising draft notification for fresh recruitment

Kolkata, May 28 With less than 48 hours left for the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) to issue the notification for fresh recruitment in state-run schools, the officers of the state Legal Affairs Department are conducting a last-moment scrutiny of the draft.

A state Secretariat official said that the Legal Affairs Department officials are currently examining each word in the draft notification to ensure there is not even the remotest possibility of any legal challenge against it.

“At the same time, it was also decided that while the entire process of fresh recruitment will be implemented by the WBSSC, it will be constantly monitored both by the Chief Minister’s Office as well as the Legal Affairs Department. The idea is to make the fresh recruitment process as watertight and as transparent as possible," the senior state government official said on strict condition of anonymity.

In the fresh recruitment process, he added, the WBSSC will introduce certain steps for infusing more transparency. "One such step will be ensuring the preservation of the optical marks recognition sheets used in written examination for a much longer period and also saving their mirror images at the server of the commission," the official added.

Another step, according to him, would be allowing candidates appearing for the written examinations to retain carbon copies of their respective OMR sheets.

On Tuesday afternoon, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that the WBSSC’s notification for fresh recruitments to vacant posts in state-run schools will be issued on May 30.

She also stated that even the ‘untainted’ teachers who had lost their jobs following a Supreme Court order in the cash-for-job case will have to appear for the written examination for recruitment. On April 3, the Supreme Court, upholding the Calcutta High Court order annulling 25,753 school appointments made through the WBSSC, also directed the state government to start a fresh recruitment process by issuing notifications or advertisements by May 31.

Since the teachers who had got their jobs without paying any money had been insisting that they would not appear for a fresh written examination, the Chief Minister on Tuesday contended that, after the Supreme Court’s order, there was no other option before them but to appear for the test.

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