IN A setback for the West Bengal government, the Calcutta High Court on Friday stayed the disbursal of monthly stipends announced for sacked Group C and Group D school employees whose appointments were nullified by the Supreme Court earlier this year.
Justice Amrita Sinha passed an interim order in this regard on a petition challenging the scheme.
The order said: “The writ petition at this stage is only for passing an interim order… the State is restrained from giving any effect or further effect to the impugned scheme till September 26, 2025 or until further orders. Direction for filing opposition within four weeks and reply within fortnight.”
The petitioners, Prakash Mandal and Jhantu Kumar Bera, are candidates who appeared for the 2016 recruitment exams and are on the waiting list.
The single bench questioned, “Whether it is proper for the State to create a class of favoured candidates out of a bigger class of unemployed jobless candidates, is a matter to be decided after hearing both the parties. Whether such novel indigenous Scheme for welfare of a particular group of persons described as tainted and whose job stood terminated because of cheating and fraudulent activity can be adopted by the State, has to be scrutinised by the court.”
The court also observed that providing financial benefits to a select group of jobless individuals while depriving others appears discriminatory. The state has the power to formulate welfare measures, but these must be applied equally, it said.
“By the impugned scheme, the state is not making any provision for securing work. The scheme is also not providing any public assistance to any unemployed candidate. On the contrary it appears that, the state is providing financial assistance to candidates whose job stood terminated by the order of the court as the same was result of cheating. The state would be obliged to make payment to persons for rendering their service to the state. Paying persons gratuitously who are not serving the State but are either sitting at home or engaged elsewhere, does not appeal to the court. Permitting the State to proceed with the Scheme will tacitly support fraudulent activity, cheating and corruption,” Justice Sinha said.
TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said, “Following the SC directive, over 26,000 people lost their jobs, bringing glee to some. It was our compassionate CM – Mamata Banerjee who stood by the affected… Relief was arranged by the CM for Group C and Group D employees who lost their livelihood. There was opposition to that, and Calcutta HC Justice Amrita Sinha issued a stay on it as well. We will follow legal recourse but identify those who go to courts and get inhumane orders.”
The Supreme Court on April 3 terminated the appointments of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff at secondary and higher secondary levels. On April 17, the court allowed “untainted” teachers to continue until December with full salaries but denied similar relief to non-teaching staff.