The Crossbill News Desk
The West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) will publish the digital mirror images of Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets and release a list of eligible and ineligible candidates who appeared for the 2016 State Level Selection Test (SLST), Education Minister Bratya Basu announced on Friday (April 11), The Indian Express reported.
The decision will be taken following proper legal consultation.
The move follows mounting pressure from affected candidates and a series of protests across the state after a Supreme Court verdict on April 3 annulled the appointments of over 25,000 teaching and non-teaching staff due to corruption and irregularities in the recruitment process.
A 13-member delegation of eligible teachers—who lost their jobs after the verdict—met with Minister Basu, WBSSC Chairman Siddhartha Majumder, West Bengal Board of Secondary Education President Ramanuj Ganguly, and other education department officials at Bikash Bhavan in Salt Lake.
The nearly three-hour-long meeting allowed the teachers to formally place their demands before the authorities.
Minister Basu said the commission intends to publish the list of eligible and ineligible candidates, along with the scanned copies of the OMR sheets of all 22 lakh examinees, by April 21, provided no legal barriers emerge.
“They appealed many things to us. We have no basic difference with their demands. However, the Supreme Court gave an order and we can’t violate that. So, without legal advice we cannot do anything,” Basu was quoted by the newspaper as saying, after the meeting.
Notably, although the Commission itself does not retain the digital images of the OMR sheets, it now possesses the scanned copies retrieved during the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe, which were subsequently shared with the Commission.
“We have no problem to announce the list of eligible and illegible candidates and also the mirror images which we got from the CBI. We said to the representatives of the teachers that we will upload those lists after getting proper legal advice,” the minister said.
Friday’s announcement came in the wake of a major rally held earlier in the week by teachers and non-teaching staff, demanding justice and reinstatement. Earlier in the day, several affected SLST-2016 candidates staged a fresh protest outside the SSC office.
On April 3, the Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar upheld the Calcutta High Court's ruling that cancelled the appointments of 25,753 candidates.
The apex court called the entire recruitment process “vitiated and tainted” and directed the state government to initiate a fresh selection process.
The decision will be taken following proper legal consultation.
The move follows mounting pressure from affected candidates and a series of protests across the state after a Supreme Court verdict on April 3 annulled the appointments of over 25,000 teaching and non-teaching staff due to corruption and irregularities in the recruitment process.
A 13-member delegation of eligible teachers—who lost their jobs after the verdict—met with Minister Basu, WBSSC Chairman Siddhartha Majumder, West Bengal Board of Secondary Education President Ramanuj Ganguly, and other education department officials at Bikash Bhavan in Salt Lake.
The nearly three-hour-long meeting allowed the teachers to formally place their demands before the authorities.
Minister Basu said the commission intends to publish the list of eligible and ineligible candidates, along with the scanned copies of the OMR sheets of all 22 lakh examinees, by April 21, provided no legal barriers emerge.
“They appealed many things to us. We have no basic difference with their demands. However, the Supreme Court gave an order and we can’t violate that. So, without legal advice we cannot do anything,” Basu was quoted by the newspaper as saying, after the meeting.
Notably, although the Commission itself does not retain the digital images of the OMR sheets, it now possesses the scanned copies retrieved during the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe, which were subsequently shared with the Commission.
“We have no problem to announce the list of eligible and illegible candidates and also the mirror images which we got from the CBI. We said to the representatives of the teachers that we will upload those lists after getting proper legal advice,” the minister said.
Friday’s announcement came in the wake of a major rally held earlier in the week by teachers and non-teaching staff, demanding justice and reinstatement. Earlier in the day, several affected SLST-2016 candidates staged a fresh protest outside the SSC office.
On April 3, the Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar upheld the Calcutta High Court's ruling that cancelled the appointments of 25,753 candidates.
The apex court called the entire recruitment process “vitiated and tainted” and directed the state government to initiate a fresh selection process.
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