Recently the court heard the school teachers of West Bengal recruitment scam are full of references to mythological, literary and historical characters.
On 17 February, Justice Biswajit Basu of the Calcutta High Court compared the West Bengal School Service Commission to the poet Valmiki, indicating a change in the agency’s stance. The commission had recently decided to dismiss candidates who got jobs through unfair means.
In the last few weeks, the appointment of 2,500 candidates was withdrawn by the commission. Justice Basu told the court that the Puranas say that Ratnakar could be Valmiki. “If the School Service Commission recuses itself…it is a good sign. Where is the difficulty?” asked the judge. The court made the observation while hearing a matter of irregularities in the recruitment of class IX and X teachers.
A few days ago Justice Subrata Talukdar of the Calcutta High Court had compared the West Bengal School Service Commission to Lady Macbeth. While the judge did not elaborate on the context, many believe he was alluding to the commission’s position where it had to reverse and repent its earlier decisions.
In another instance, one of the advocates – appearing to be job aspirants – said that the School Service Commission was responsible for the whole mess which affected others, like Yudhishthira’s game of dice in the Mahabharata affected many. Was.
The remarks come at a time when candidates who got jobs allegedly using unfair means are being identified and sacked by the School Service Commission. On 17 February, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested six agents who were part of the money collection network in the scam.
Court references are not limited to mythological and fictional characters. Challenging the bail application of former education minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested In July 2022, for his alleged involvement in the scam, ED counsel Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar took refuge. He had argued, “Vidyasagar had taken West Bengal forward by 100 years and Partha Chatterjee had taken it back by 100 years.”
The recruitment scam affected the politics of the state following the arrest of Partha Chatterjee and since then several prominent arrests and regular court proceedings have dominated the debate in West Bengal. A section of job seekers is still regularly organizing protests and demanding that they be appointed in government schools as they missed the opportunity due to the scam.