The Calcutta High Court’s decision last week to cancel the recruitment of almost 26,000 schoolteachers and non-teaching staff has set off a political firestorm in West Bengal amid the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, providing the Opposition BJP more ammunition with which to target the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
At a rally in Malda town on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took aim at the TMC and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, saying, “TMC played with the lives of the youths in Bengal. About 26,000 people lost their livelihoods due to the massive recruitment scam. Those, who took loans and gave them to the TMC (to get jobs), are on the roads now. It is the BJP government at the Centre that is providing jobs to the youth.”
Hitting back, Mamata said, “You have heard about maneater tigers, but have you heard about the job-eater BJP? Did you see the glee on the face of the leaders of the BJP, CPI(M) and Congress after so many people were rendered jobless by the court?”
What did the High Court say?
In its April 22 order, a Division Bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Shabbar Rashidi cancelled the appointments of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff and ordered them to “return all remunerations and benefits received … along with interest calculated at 12% per annum from the date of receipt thereof till deposit, within a period of four weeks from date”. The court also ordered the CBI to investigate further and submit a report within three months.
What is the school jobs scam?
The scam came to the fore when a High Court Division Bench comprising Justices Harish Tandon and Rabindranath Samanta set up a committee headed by Justice (retired) Ranjit Bag on February 22, 2022 to look into alleged irregularities in the school job recruitment process. The committee submitted its report on May 12 that year. Based on it, a Division Bench of justices Subrata Talukdar and Ananda Kumar Mukherjee upheld then Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay’s directive for a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in the appointment for Group C and Group D posts in the School Education Department.
Who have been arrested to date?
Among the first high-profile arrests was then TMC leader and state minister Partha Chatterjee and his close aide Arpita Mukherjee in August 2022. The TMC faced the full heat of media glare when movable and immovable property worth over Rs 100 crore was linked to Chatterjee, as were bundles of cash running into crores. The ruling party subsequently expelled him from the state Cabinet and the party.
More arrests followed, of senior officials in the state education department, including North Bengal University Vice Chancellor Subiresh Bhattacharya, TMC MLA and West Bengal Board of Primary Education president Manik Bhattacharya, and TMC MLA Jiban Krishna Saha.
How is it playing out politically?
Coming in the middle of the Lok Sabha elections, the order is a massive setback for the TMC, which is now trying to do damage control by saying not all should lose their jobs. The government has also said it will move the Supreme Court.
At an election rally in Raiganj in Uttar Dinajpur district the day the court gave the order, Mamata Banerjee said, “It is not mandatory to accept all verdicts. We will challenge the order in the higher court. This order was passed as per the BJP’s instructions, amid elections.”
The BJP and other parties have attempted to corner the government and demanded the CM’s resignation. BJP’s Tamluk candidate Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who as a judge ruled in several cases related to the scam, said, “The real culprits are sitting in top positions of the state administration .. if they have the courage and any shame left in them, they should quit their positions of power and face investigations.”
CPI(M) leader and senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, who has been fighting the case, said, “It proves that if the court wants, it can uphold constitutional rights and unmask corrupt governments. Unfortunately, some people have to lose their jobs, but they should realise the consequences of supporting a corrupt party.”
For the BJP, anti-corruption is a major poll plank in West Bengal that has helped it corner the TMC for the better part of the three years since Mamata returned to power in the 2021 state elections. Apart from the school jobs scam, in which TMC leaders have been arrested, the Mamata Banerjee-led party has also been under the scanner in coal and cattle smuggling cases and the alleged municipal jobs and ration distribution scams. The TMC and the BJP-led Centre have also been involved in a face-off over the alleged withholding of Central funds. The BJP has alleged that this happened because of alleged irregularities in the implementation of the schemes, something the TMC has denied.
