SC verdict: Lawyer questions flawed process

Senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya on Thursday said that when the whole process of recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in West Bengal government-sponsored and aided schools has been termed "tainted" by the Supreme Court, it cannot be determined who was eligible and who was not.

Bhattacharya represented several candidates, who claimed to have been deprived of a fair selection process, before the Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court in their challenge against the appointments of nearly 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staff.

The CPI(M)'s Rajya Sabha MP maintained that when the whole process is declared "tainted", it cannot be determined who was eligible and who was not.

"One must also think of the interest of those lakhs of candidates who had been deprived of a fair selection process for the jobs," Bhattacharya said.

Expressing dismay at the loss of jobs of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury claimed that this happened because the state government did not assist the apex court by presenting the case properly.

"The state government did not assist the Supreme Court by presenting documents before it properly," he said, claiming that the government did not work in the interest of these people who lost their jobs.

He alleged that the state was keen to "save those who were behind such recruitments."