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West Bengal school hiring case: State education department challenges Calcutta HC maintainability of contempt petition

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In a Calcutta High Court hearing of a contempt petition against the Supreme Court order on the West Begnal SSC judgment, the West Bengal Education Department on April 23 challenged before the Calcutta High Court the maintainability of the petition which accused non-compliance of its order regarding 26,000 school posts in the state.

The petitioners argued that the Education Department failed to release OMR sheets of 26,000 of the teaching and non-teaching vacancies affected by a Supreme Court judgment affirming the high court decree with some variation.

During the hearing, the lawyer of the education department presented a case to the division bench of justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi, stating that in view of the Supreme Court's changes to certain of the high court's orders, any contempt case has to go before the Supreme Court itself.

Similarly, the legal counsel for West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) objected to the lawfulness of pursuing the high court with the application for contempt for the same reason.

On the other hand, the lawyer of the petitioners stated that it was within rights to move a contempt petition in the high court since the changes made by the Supreme Court did not make an extraordinary change to the directions given initially by the high court.

The court has scheduled the case for another hearing next Monday.

The petitioners, in their objections, presented their grievances against the violation of the order issued by the high court on April 22, 2024, subsequently modified by the Supreme Court on April 3 and April 17 of this year. They moved a contempt petition against the opposition to the argument that the OMR sheets stored on three hard disks (used in the examinations) are still yet to be uploaded on the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) website "forthwith," as the division bench's order has directed in terms of being accessible to the public.