A committee constituted by the Calcutta High Court on Friday submitted a report on an alleged scam in recruitments by the School Service Commission (SSC), saying that 381 appointments for Group-C posts in the state government-run schools in West Bengal were made illegally.
The committee, headed by Justice (retd) RK Bag, recommended criminal proceedings against four ex-state SSC officials and the incumbent president of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education. It also sought disciplinary proceedings against six other former senior SSC officials. The report said that a five-member panel formed in 2019 by the Education Department, when senior TMC leader Partha Chatterjee held the portfolio as minister, for monitoring the recruitments of teaching and non-teaching staff did not have any legal validity.
It stated that WBBSE president Kalyanmoy Ganguly was hand in glove with former SSC adviser and and chief of the five-member committee SP Sinha, the chief of the five-member committee, in making the illegal appointments.
Advocate Arunabha Bandopadhyay, a member of the Justice Bag committee who submitted the report before the HC bench, said that massive irregularities were committed in giving appointments to the 381 candidates, with rules and procedures being bypassed. A division bench of Justices Subrata Talukdar and Ananda Kumar Mukherjee directed that it will pass judgement on the matter on May 18.
Maintaining that the recommendations for appointments made by the SSC to WBBSE were fabricated, the panel called for penal action against former SSC chairman Saumitra Sarkar, former SSC secretary Ashok Saha, and S Acharya, who was the programme officer of SSC, besides SP Sinha and Kalyanmoy Ganguly.
It noted that forged recommendation letters by the SSC were prepared for the 381 jobs in Group-C posts in state-runand aided schools.
The report also recommended disciplinary action by the government against the then top officials of regional and central school service commissions in the state — Subiresh Bhattacharya, Sarmila Mitra, Mahua Biswas, Chaitali Bhattacharya, Subhajit Chattopadhyay and Sk Sirajuddin.
The Bag committee had earlier submitted its report in the court on alleged irregularities in the appointments of Group-D staff. The division bench, which is hearing several appeals connected to appointments under the SSC to the posts of assistant teachers for classes IX and X, Group-C and Group-D staff, had on April 13 extended a stay for five weeks on an order of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay that asked minister Partha Chatterjee to appear before the CBI.
(With PTI Inputs)
