'Systemic Fraud, Faith Of People In Public Employment Cannot Be Played With' : Supreme Court Slams WB SSC For Not Maintaining Data Of Answer Sheets

The Supreme Court today (May 7) came down heavily upon the  West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) for lapses in data preservation of the scanned images of OMR sheets which are the main source of evidence in the ongoing challenge to the cancellation of 25000 appointments made by the State in recruiting class teachers.  

The bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud was hearing the issue against the Calcutta High Court's invalidation of teaching jobs across government and aided schools. During the hearing, the CJI, disappointed by the careless conduct of SSC in maintaining proper data of the OMR scans after destroying the original sheets, termed the conduct as 'systemic fraud'. 

Highlighting the sensitivity of the irresponsible conduct of the commission and how it had a far-reaching impact on appointments of a huge magnitude, the CJI said that such an instance only diminishes the citizens' confidence in the idea of public employment.  

"This is systemic fraud, ultimately what happens is that today public jobs are so scarce and so valued, today, that if the faith of the community in public employment goes then nothing remains..this is a source of social mobility for the people coming from the lower strata. People only aspire that my daughter or son will get a government job. If this is the way, I mean we are virtually lowering public employment what remains in the system?" 

Senior Advocate Mr Jaideep Gupta appearing for the School Service Commission (SSC) informed the Court that the commission was not maintaining any data records in its server of the mirror images of the OMR sheets, after the said answer sheets were destroyed. On query by the bench, it was informed that the company 'NYSA' or 'NYCE' was given a limited tender by SSC to carry out the data scanning of the OMR sheets. 

The CJI, however taking objection as to how a third party was outsourced and entrusted with confidential answer sheets, questioned the ignorant conduct of the commission. It may be noted that NYSA had further hired another agency 'Data Scan-Tech Solutions' based out of Noida to carry out the scanning of the OMR sheets and preserve the mirror images in the server of NYSA. 

"The fact that you did not prevent outsourcing shows that you have just turned a blind eye to the whole sanctity of the process" 

The senior counsel submitted that the SSC was not aware of the said outsourcing for data scanning of the OMR sheets by NYCE. 

" There was no indication that the persons who have come in were somebody else and not NYCE! that's my lords not intended to be a pun"  

The CJI reverted asking if the SSC staff was not attentive when the employees of the outsourced agency entered the office of the commission to collect and scan the data. He gave the example of how even in the Supreme Court scanning centres, the Supreme Court staff is aware of who is coming to scan. 

Taking a serious view of the apparent breach of confidentiality of data and non-maintenance of the data by SSC, the CJI termed it to be a 'great breach of security protocols'. 

"Can there be a greater breach of security protocols? it is worse to have your data in some outsourcing agency's servers ....you are the statutory body, you allow the entire scanned data to be preserved by an outsourcing agency? it's only a labour provided to do the scanning....you cannot say that NYCE took it away, you are responsible for maintaining the data, it is people's data." 

Mr Gupta however rebutted that the said data stored in the NYSA server is being relied upon by the CBI in charge sheeting the concerned persons and that the authenticity of the data could not be under challenge. 

RTI Queries Wrongly Told That SSC Preserved Database: CJI Takes Stern View 

The CJI,pointing at the responses given to the RTI applications asking for the data on OMR sheets, highlighted that up until now the SSC was wrongly portraying to the public queries that they were the custodians of the OMR scanned data. 

" So you have responded to RTI queries that this is from my database, and now it's come to light that this is not from your database at all. What you were saying to the RTI applicants that this is from my database, that is incorrect."  

It was further observed by the CJI that the commission failed to keep supervisory control over the maintenance and preservation of the data. 

"Either you have the data, or you don't have the data, you were duty bound to maintain the documents in digitised form, you provide RTI responses that this is from my database....now it is obvious that there is no data, you are unaware of the fact that your service provider has engaged another agency, you had to keep supervisory control."  

Details Of The High Court Order 

In a detailed order running into more than 280 pages, a division bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi cancelled the entire panel of the 2016 SSC Recruitment upon finding irregularities with OMR sheets and ordered the state to conduct fresh examinations for the same.

Not only this, but the High Court also directed the appointees, who were recognised to have been fraudulently appointed, to return the salary they had drawn.

The Court observed that the entire panel of recruitment originating out of the 2016 recruitment process had been tainted due to the irregularities with the OMR sheets, many of which were found blank, and were liable to be cancelled. The Court also found that many of those whose appointments had been challenged had been appointed after the panel for the 2016 recruitment had expired by submitting blank OMR sheets.

In view of the above projection, the High Court had also directed an investigation into those who perpetrated the fraud and disposed of the pleas by cancelling the entire 2016 SSC Recruitment Panel.

Subsequently, the CBI chargesheeted the alleged persons involved on the basis of the data stored with service provider NYSA as the original OMR sheets were destroyed by the SSC as per protocol. The data was also used to charge the former employee of the service provider NYSA Mr Pankaj Bansal from whom the data was recovered in the first place. 

In its order, the Top Court today also modified its earlier interim order protecting the appointments made in pursuance of the alleged West Bengal SSC recruitment scam, stating that those appointees whose appointments are found to be illegal shall be liable to refund their salaries. the CBI was further permitted to continue its probe to determine the officials involved but precluded the agency from taking any coercive steps. The matter is now posted to July 16.  

Case Details : THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL vs. BAISHAKHI BHATTACHARYYA (CHATTERJEE) SLP(C) No. 009586 - / 2024