NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider a plea by the West Bengal government challenging the maintainability of a PIL demanding CBI probe into irregularities in selection of over 42,000 assistant teachers in primary schools.
The top court asked the Mamata Banerjee government to raise its plea before the high court.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay S Oka said it is not inclined to entertain West Bengal government plea challenging the high court order passed in July, 2022.
The bench told the counsel that the state can put its defence before the high court.
A petition was filed before the high court alleging irregularities in the recruitment of assistant teachers in primary schools based on the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET), 2014.
The West Bengal government challenged the Calcutta High Court order, which rejected its preliminary objection questioning the maintainability of this petition.
The state government counsel contended that the PIL in a service matter was not maintainable, and it has been filed after eight years of the TET.
The counsel contended that another PIL on the issue was earlier dismissed by the high court.
"It is open for the state to defend it there (before the HC). Needless to say, that all questions of law are left open," the bench said.
The PIL in the high court alleged irregularities and corruption in the recruitment of assistant teachers in primary schools of the state based on TET 2014.
The PIL alleged that in TET 2014, 42,897 candidates were stated to have been selected but no merit list was ever published disclosing the marks obtained either in the written test or interview. It further added that no reserved category-wise list was published.
Notably, then Education Minister Partha Chatterjee and others had already been arrested in teachers recruitment scam and huge amount of illicit money has been recovered allegedly at their instance.
