With no silver lining in sight, deserving SSC candidates from Hooghly hope for relief from state

The Supreme Court in a judgment on Thursday upheld a Calcutta High Court's decision cancelling en bloc a "tainted" selection process that saw the appointments of 25,572 teaching and non-teaching staff in various state-run and state-aided schools across the state.

- HEMANT JACOB

The state had earlier approached the apex court contending that the Kolkata High Court had acted in an erroneous manner by mechanically cancelling all the appointments without segregating and examining the merits of each and every individual candidate who had been recruited by School Service Commission (SSC) in 2016.

A two-judge Bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar agreed with the high court, finding that the selection process was vitiated and riddled with manipulations and fraud. Attempts were made to cover up the fraud, which only further "denuded" the credibility and legitimacy of the selection process, the bench held.

Soon after the apex court verdict, the deserving candidates from Hooghly district broke into tears; they found themselves lost in utter despair with no hope immediately in sight.

Abira Das, Sanchita Soren, Ronit Saha, and Pallavi Das of Serampore Girls' High School lost their jobs as per the verdict until some future clarification issued by official notification from the education department of the state that could defend the cases of the fair and deserving candidates.