West Bengal School Staff Recruitment Scam : Live Updates From Supreme Court Hearing
The Supreme Court is hearing the appeals filed by the State of West Bengal and certain private individuals challenging the decision of the Calcutta High Court to set aside the appointments of nearly 25,000 school staff.
The High Court quashed the appointments on the ground that they were illegal. The Court also issued direction to the CBI to investigate into the recruitment scam.
The Supreme Court earlier observed that it will see if the untainted appointments can be segregated instead of quashing the entire recruitments.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar is hearing the matter.
Counsel: today prosecution has been initiated, today the conclusion arrived that cannot be substantiated by the evidence, kindly await the prosecution , pls do not uphold the decision
Counsel for Group C-D appears (where tainted candidates percentage is higher)
CJI: I don't know whether daal mein kaala hai yaan sab kuch hi kaala hai! ( Don't of there's a black spot in lentils or its in fact black lentils!)
Hegde: figure of untainted appointments is 92 % in 9-10th class teachers, real problem arises in group C and D
Hegde: in that aspect it is severable....recruitment of teachers in no states there have been problem, I don't want to perpetuate, I come from a family of teachers, I understand the problem of bad teachers.....where a segregation exercise is demonstrably possible
Hegde: we also have the attrition factor of retirement or resignation etc
Sanjay Hegde for the board: I am appearing along with Sanjay Ghose, this is a Mahabharat going on which requires 3 Sanjays!
Hegde: my concern is that to have a continuous education in the state of WB more than the jobs
CJI: that argument cannot be made
Gupta: it is not enough to say blank sheet, that blank sheet should lead to 100 marks
CJI: only question you have to answer- that the data base available is the actual authentic data base - they (CBI) have not been able to ascertain, they have left it neutral ....Iam still worried about blank OMR sheets question, the possibility of change of OMR sheets
CJI: what is weighed with the HC is that we cannot even authenticate the original data base ...it uses that (CBI report) as the basis
CJI: were you able to ascertain the data on which OMR was captured? check it up and let us know by 2 PM
J Kumar: also if you have the full data of the 22 lakh candidates
CJI: whether the harsh value indicates the data on which the data was captured and whether there was any change in the data
CJI: the question today is the authenticity of the data scanned and found in the hard disk, that itself is the subject matter
CJI: look there is certain manipulation at your side, whether there was any manipulation by Pankaj Bansal is still to be known, your employees will be in problem (SSC)
CJI: when you scan the data, should you be keeping a copy to yourself while giving to the other side? there is hardly any time gap between marking and scanning, it happened simultaneously, so you should have retained the data to yourself