West Bengal Govt Challenges Single-Judge Order Debarring “Tainted” Candidates From Reapplying For Fresh Recruitment

The State of West Bengal has approached the Calcutta High Court challenging a single bench order which held that tainted candidates in the SSC Recruitment scam would not be allowed to re-apply for the fresh recruitment process, as held by the Supreme Court. 

The appeal was moved before a division bench of Justices Soumen Sen and Smita Das De.

The single bench noted that according to an earlier decision of a division bench of the High Court, which was upheld by the Supreme Court, it is crystal clear that on finding egregious irregularities offending Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India entire selection process was set aside, resulting in cancellation of engagement of two categories of candidates, one category was termed as “tainted” and another was “untainted”.

While dealing with the appointment of tainted candidates, it had been observed by the Supreme Court that their appointment was a result of fraud, which amounts to cheating, based on which the judgment of the Division Bench was not interfered with so far as tainted candidates were concerned.

While upholding the decision to cancel the appointments of the untainted candidates due to the entire process being vitiated by fraud, the Supreme Court stated that they were not required to refund their salaries, like the tainted candidates.