Kolkata: A recruitment drive conducted in 2016 by the West Bengal Central School Service Commission (WBSSC) has returned to the concern of the Mamata Banerjee government after six years.
An inquiry committee set up by the Calcutta High Court has described in its report how at least 609 alleged illegal recruitments of Group ‘D’ employees were made.
In the 68-page report submitted last month, A copy of which was accessed by ThePrint, the committee has detailed how the Right to Information (RTI) Act was allegedly misused to facilitate “illegal” recruitments.,
It has been alleged that candidates who had failed the recruitment test could have filed an RTI application and got their answer sheets for inspection. After that, they were able to file an application to have their scripts re-evaluated – and their scores increased.
However, there is no provision under the school service rules for raising marks or ranks in this way – which is why the resulting appointments have been termed “illegal”, suspected of lack of funds. Last year, a single-judge bench of the High Court ordered a probe by the CBI, but this was stayed by a division bench, which instead constituted an inquiry committee.
“The Right to Information can only provide information on the marks obtained by the candidates,” advocate Arunav Banerjee, who was a member of the HC-appointed committee, told ThePrint.
“RTI cannot increase the marks of a candidate, as was done in the case of Group ‘D’ recruitment,” he alleged.
ThePrint reached out to state cabinet minister Partha Chatterjee, who handled the school education department from 2014 to 2021, via telephone, text message, WhatsApp and email. on May 2, This report will be updated after receiving their response.
The current education minister of the state, Bratya Basu, refused to speak about the alleged scam, but said, “I do not want to comment (on) what has happened in the past. But we assure you, we will ensure transparency in recruitment.”
Talking to the media at the state secretariat after the cabinet meeting on May 5Basu said, “We will not conduct any internal inquiry. It is for other departments to do. Our job is to make appointments. Not enquiries.”
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How the ‘scam’ was exposed
WBSSC is in charge of appointment of teaching and non-teaching staff in all government aided and recognized schools functioning under the state education department. According to the inquiry report, an advertisement was published on 8 August 2016 to fill up the vacancies for Group ‘D’ posts. The written test for the interested candidates was held on February 19, 2017.
Candidates appear for a written test followed by a personality test. Successful candidates receive recommendations from regional commissioners after appointments.
As per the rules, any recruitment panel – candidates who qualify the written test, are empaneled on the basis of district and category – is valid for a period of one year from the date of acceptance of the panel by the respective regional commissioners. Extension of only six months is allowed, after which the panel cannot be extended.
In this case, the original panel was published on the website of the Central Commission on 6 November 2017. The panel for Group ‘D’ ended on 4 May 2019.
However, the inquiry committee report claimed that the ranks of some candidates were changed on 18 June 2019 (based on the system of RTI applications) and the final panel was uploaded on the Central Commission website on 20 June 2019. – It expires after more than a month.
As per the inquiry report, under the School Service Commission Rules, 2009, there is no provision for re-evaluation/re-checking of digitally assessed answer scripts or Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets. Despite this, WBSSC officials told the committee that candidates can seek revaluation/re-checking of OMR sheets by submitting an application under the RTI Act.
Based on such applications, the scrutiny report says, WBSSC will supply the OMR sheets to the candidates along with the answer keys. Candidates can then make their own assessment and submit a separate application for enhancement of marks, if required. This will then be processed by the Commission, and if approved, the candidates’ marks will be increased and their rank in the panel of Group ‘D’ Recruitment will be upgraded.
The four unsuccessful candidates brought to the notice of the Calcutta High Court the names of 523 people who were allegedly appointed after the exhaustion of the recruitment panel. After this, the High Court handed over the investigation of the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in an order passed on 22 November 2021.
The inquiry report says: “The Hon’ble Single Bench of the High Court directed the CBI to investigate into the unseen hands involved in preparing and sending recommendation letters to the Chairman of the Board for appointment of ineligible candidates in Group ‘D’ .’ Positions as Hon’ble Judge was of the view that corruption in the whole process of public employment was (was) largely written off and traces of money were also suspected.
The court entrusted the CBI to “make recommendations to ineligible candidates for Group ‘D’ posts and investigate excessive illegality in appointments.” However, the West Bengal government challenged the CBI probe and filed four separate appeals before a division bench.
A division bench of Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Rabindranath Samant then stayed the CBI probe. Instead, it constituted a three-member inquiry committee on 6 December 2021, comprising advocate Arunav Banerjee, Professor Ashutosh Ghosh – board member of the Kendriya Vidyalaya Service Commission – and Paromita Roy, deputy secretary (administration), West Bengal Board. secondary education. Retired High Court judge Ranjit Kumar Bagh was appointed to oversee the committee.
The division bench said that a copy of the report of the inquiry committee would be given to the single bench which had ordered the CBI probe. The committee submitted its findings on 11 April. After reading the report, the Single Bench again ordered a CBI inquiry, but that too was stayed by the Division Bench on 13 April.
modus operandi
For scrutiny, the committee randomly selected 16 candidates who appeared for the Group ‘D’ recruitment test. Then it came to know that 15 of these people got appointment letters after the expiry of the period of the recruitment panel.
Reportedly, none of these 15 candidates participated in the counseling for Group ‘D’ recruitment as required under Rule 18 of the School Service Commission Rules, 2009. Rather, he received “fake recommendation letters” from the office of the Central Commission. on the basis of their RTI applications.
As per the report, however, these candidates could not provide a copy of the RTI when asked by the inquiry committee.
M/s NYSA Communications – the company which was engaged for evaluation of OMR sheets – confirmed to the Scrutiny Committee that it had submitted all the answer scripts to WBSSC after publishing the result. The company said that it has never re-evaluated/re-checked any of the answer sheets, which were allegedly claimed by the State Education Board officials to justify appointments based on RTI applications.
The report also stated that the panel of successful candidates was prepared in the office of WBSSC, without the participation of the chairmen of the regional commissions. It is the latter who are supposed to give recommendation letters as per the School Service Commission Rules, 2009.
The investigation had also reportedly revealed that the chairman of WBSSC had directed the chairpersons of five regional commissions to scan and store their signatures on the application servers of WBSSC. These were later used as “invalid digital signatures” for more than 500 “fake” recommendation letters.
These “fake” appointment letters were allegedly handed over to ineligible candidates – by specific peons and special messengers – and not through speed post or registered post, as prescribed in the rule book. Thus no memo number was kept in the office register of these letters.
Then, on 1 November 2019, a Joint Secretary to the Government of West Bengal passed an order and constituted a committee to clear some pending recruitments, says the inquiry report.
Dr. Shanti Prasad Sinha, Advisor to the Central Commission was appointed as the convener for the supervision, monitoring and guidance of this committee. Not only was this committee constituted after the abolition of Group ‘D’ recruitment panel, its formation was “illegal in the eyes of law” as per the inquiry report, as WBSSC is the sole body to conduct the recruitment process.
The probe claimed to have uncovered how the conveners of this “illegal” committee were making “illegal” appointments of Group ‘D’ employees along with state education department officials.
Prosecution and current investigation status
The inquiry committee in its report has suggested that an FIR be registered against Dr. Shanti Prasad Sinha under Section 465/417/468/34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) – making false documents, cheating, forgery and committing by multiple persons. criminal acts committed. Advancing common intentions.
Reached for comment, Sinha said: “As convener, I called two meetings but no meeting took place. As a consultant, I have nothing to do with illegal recommendations. Please ask the president and secretary.”
Dr. Kalyanmoy Ganguly, chairman of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education, has also been blamed; Professor Soumitra Sarkar, former Chairman of the Central Commission, and former WBSSC secretary Ashok Kumar Saha, The report has sought registration of an FIR against him under section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.
ThePrint spoke to Ganguly, who said the matter under consideration And he would not like to comment at this time. Asked about the allegations in the inquiry report, he said: “I have not seen the report. The copy has not been given to me. So I can answer only after reading the report once.”
Reached for comment, the government said: “I am unaware of the report and its findings as it has not been published.” Asked whether he was aware of the alleged illegal recruitments during his tenure, as mentioned in the probe report, he said he did not know anything about it.
ThePrint also reached out to Saha over the phone, but he said, “Can’t comment at this stage, I’m sorry.”
Meanwhile, the CBI, which was probing the case until it was stayed by a division bench of the High Court, had questioned Shanti Prasad Sinha on April 6. Four other members of the alleged illegal committee monitoring the recruitment appeared before the CBI for questioning on April 4.
The central agency has also questioned Partha Chatterjee, private secretary to the minister in charge (MIC). Though the order for constitution of the committee to carry out the selection was signed by the joint secretary, as per the inquiry report, “Such steps are taken only after the approval of the MIC. So Partha Chatterjee was aware of the committee.”
Last month the High Court directed Sinha to appear before CBI
The Single Judge Bench of the Calcutta High Court had also asked Minister Chatterjee to appear before the CBI on April 13, but the order was stayed by the Bench on the same day, for four weeks.
The division bench also issued an order staying the CBI probe for the same period.
(Edited by Paulomi Banerjee and Rohan Manoj)
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