West Bengal Teacher Recruitment Scam: Appointment Of More Than 800 Group C Employees Cancelled By Calcutta High Court

On Friday, 10 March, the Calcutta High Court decreed the termination of employment of 842 Group C staff in West Bengal schools.

The court had already nullified the appointments of 1,911 Group D and 618 secondary level teachers where the hiring process came under the shadow of the School Service Commission (SSC) scam.

It is alleged that the former education minister of West Bengal, Partha Chatterjee, his relatives, close aides and friends, his staff and the officials in charge of recruiting teachers accepted lakhs of rupees for issuing appointment letters to undeserving candidates.

As per this report, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has alleged that 55 of the 842 were recommended by Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's) Suvendu Adhikari.

The same report quotes Bengal BJP spokesperson as saying that: "The problem is they can’t forget that they lost Nandigram, which is why they are attacking Adhikari".

This order of the Calcutta High Court has thus opened another front between the BJP and the Trinamool ahead of the Panchayat elections in West Bengal.

The panchayat polls are scheduled to be held in May this year.

TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee has convened a meeting of senior leaders of the party on 17 March to discuss its strategy for the same.

With inputs from PTI.