5 recipes that gave shape to the alleged SSC scam in West Bengal

KOLKATA: Innovative ways were used to change marks and give appointments to applicants in the School Service Commission (SSC) examination scam in West Bengal, an inquiry committee set up by the Calcutta high court and the ongoing probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) have found.

The division bench of the Calcutta high court set up the committee headed by Justice Ranjit Kumar Bag in December 2021 after allegations of massive irregularities in the recruitment of teachers of classes IX and X and group C and group D staff in government schools surfaced. Later, a CBI probe was ordered by the court.

HT takes a look at the five recipes that summed up the scam.

A ‘Super Committee’ which formed the ‘root’ of the alleged scam

In November 2019, a five-member committee was set up by the state education department with the approval of the then state education minister, Partha Chatterjee. The committee was set up to supervise, monitor and guide the centraI commission in connection with pending recruitment process.

“The so called Super Committee setup by the then Minister-in-Charge of the School Education Department, Partho Chatterjee, and headed by its advisor, S P Sinha, played a key role in the public scam,” the division bench of Justice Subrata Talukdar and Justice Ananda Kumar Mukherjee said in its order on May 18.

The counsels of the members of the super committee however have told the court that their clients had no role to play in the illegal appointments.

“The constitution of this committee was violation of the School Service Commission Act, 1997,” said the CBI’s FIR.

Arunava Banerjee, senior advocate of the Calcutta high court and a member of the Jutsice Bag committee, said that soon after the supervisory committee was formed, the fake recommendation letters were issued.

“Most of the recommendation letters were issued in December 2019 and the illegal appointment letters in March 2020.”

RTI to re-evaluate OMR sheets which never existed

While examinations to the post of assistant teachers and group C and D staff, were held in 2017, more than 1,000 unsuccessful candidates started filing RTI in September 2019 with the SSC.

The findings suggest that under the garb of RTI applications, marks of the unsuccessful candidates were falsely re-evaluated and their ranks upgraded.

“All those false recommendations have been made in favour of the candidates who alleged to have submitted applications for re-evaluation of OMR sheets in the garb of filing applications under RTI Act,” said the Bag committee report.

Banerjee said that RTI was just used as a camouflage as it was impossible to reevaluate the marks in OMR sheets.

“Firstly the OMR sheets for group D exams were already destroyed by an agency hired by the SSC just after one year of the exam, which was held in February 2017. The RTI applications were filed more than two years after the examination, around August and September 2019. Secondly an OMR sheet would always give the same result,” said Banerjee.

Scanned signatures used to prepare false recommendation letters

Scanned signatures of regional chairpersons of the commission were used to issue both recommendation letters and appointment letters. The chairpersons had no knowledge of this alleged fraud.

“In view of the illegal procedure adopted by the central commission, the regional commissions and the board, unsuccessful candidates got false recommendation letters from the office of the central commission, which were prepared by affixing scanned signatures of the chairpersons of the regional commissions by keeping them in the dark,” says the Bag committee report.

The CBI too has said in its FIR filed on May 20 that scanned signatures of regional chairpersons were used on the recommendation letters against which appointment letters were issued.

The then chairman of the central commission allegedly took the decision of scanning and storing the image of original signatures of the chairpersons of the regional commissions in the application server of the central commission so that appointment letters could be issued centrally keeping the regional commissions in dark.

“All this was done after the SSC’s panel expired in May 2019 and without any decision being at the board meeting or without any written instruction. It rather took advantage of the stored scanned signatures,” said Banerjee.

Vacancies and fictitious memos

Vacancies from various schools were illegally collected in August 2019 after the expiry of the SSC’s recruitment panel in May 2019, the Bag committee says. Those vacancies were filled up with the help of fake recommendation letters issued against fictitious memos.

“Vacancies of Group C were collected in an unauthorized manner after expiry of paneI in violation of provisions of School Service Commission Rules, 2009 and then issued recommendations to unsuccessful candidates to those vacancies by issuing fictitious memos of the regionaI commissions,” says the CBI’s FIR.

The regional commissions were asked to open new and separate Issue Registers. The first memo number of each such register from the regional commission was sent to the central commission. This helped the central commission to mechanically generate the memo number of the regional commissions from the system by maintaining the serial order.

“The memo numbers of the recommendation letters prepared in the office of the central commission on the dates of counseling of the candidates were subsequently collected and entries of those memo numbers were made in this separate Issue register to give show of colour as if the recommendation letters have been issued from the regional commissions,” the Justice Bag committee report says.

Appointment letters issued bypassing the normal chain

Finally the appointment letters were issued bypassing the normal chain of hierarchy from a different building, the address of which was not mentioned on the board’s website. Even the dates on which the appointment letters would be handed over were not notified. The candidates were called over phone.

“On the basis of these recommendations, appointment letters were issued bypassing the normal chain of hierarchy and without sending those recommendation letters to the appointment section of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education,” the CBI has said in its FIR.

Findings of the Justice Bag committee suggest that a few bunch of such fake recommendation letters were handed over to a top official of the board of secondary education. The board’s top official never sent those recommendation letters to the appointment section.

“Instead appointment letters were prepared in the board’s office itself with scanned signatures of the regional chairpersons. The appointment letters were handed over to the officials of the new building,” said Banerjee.

The unsuccessful candidates received appointment letters based on the false recommendations from the new building of the central commission situated near Anadalok Hospital at Salt Lake City.

“Successful candidates were not aware of the new building. The entire building was supposed to be closed as confidential papers related to examinations were kept there. Usually entry of visitors are also restricted to the premises,” said Banerjee.