According to the Supreme Court order, these teachers and staff can continue working until the investigation is completed, but they are required to submit an undertaking as deponents before resuming their duties.
KOLKATA: On June 3, approximately 26,000 teachers and non-teaching staff who lost their jobs following a Calcutta High Court order rejoined their respective schools, which reopened on Monday after the summer vacation. Their future employment now depends on a Supreme Court decision.
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These educators and staff members, who were appointed through the 2016 state-level selection tests for classes IX–XII, signed the attendance registers despite the uncertainty surrounding their positions.
According to the Supreme Court order, these teachers and staff can continue working until the investigation is completed, but they are required to submit an undertaking as deponents before resuming their duties. However, no written undertakings have been requested, as schools have not received instructions from higher authorities.
The headmistress of a Behala school mentioned,
“We have four teachers from the 2016 panel who signed in on Monday. We have not received any instruction regarding signing an undertaking.” Similarly, the headmaster of a South 24 Parganas school stated, “We are not authorized to stop them from signing the attendance register, and I don’t want to add to the misery of these teachers who are already under pressure.”
Argha Sarkar, a teacher at Dhola High School, added,
“There are four teachers in our school, including myself, who have signed the attendance register without any obstruction from the school authority.” These teachers and staff are also consulting with their lawyers to ensure they don’t face legal issues related to this matter.
Earlier, A bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra allowed the CBI to continue its investigation, including probing state cabinet members, but instructed the agency not to take drastic actions such as making arrests during the investigation.
Earlier in the day, the court described the alleged scam as a “systemic fraud” and emphasized the responsibility of state authorities to maintain digitized records of teacher and non-teaching staff appointments.
The Supreme Court was addressing a series of petitions challenging the Calcutta High Court’s April 22 decision, which annulled the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff.
“Public jobs are very scarce. If the public loses faith, nothing remains. This is systemic fraud. Public jobs are crucial for social mobility. What happens if these appointments are tainted? People will lose faith. How do you defend this?” Chief Justice Chandrachud questioned the state’s lawyers.
The bench highlighted the state government’s failure to demonstrate that relevant data was maintained, questioning its availability.
“You either have the data or you don’t. You were obligated to keep the documents in digital form. It’s clear there is no data. You are unaware that your service provider engaged another agency. You needed to maintain supervisory control,” the bench told the state’s lawyers.
The state government had challenged the Calcutta High Court’s order, arguing that the appointments were canceled “arbitrarily.”
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