00:00Let's begin with the news break coming in from the courts with the Supreme Court delivering
00:05a big blow to the Mamata government in the Bengal job scam.
00:10Scam in the hiring allegedly of 25,000 Bengal teachers is under the scanner and the Supreme
00:15Court has upheld a high court order that previously scrapped these hirings.
00:20A petition was filed before the Supreme Court challenging the high court order that sought
00:23relief for the Mamata government on this.
00:26No relief coming in for the government as the Supreme Court has clearly said that the
00:30teacher hiring process was tainted and so has gone ahead and scrapped all the hirings
00:36as previously done by the Calcutta High Court.
00:39The Supreme Court in its observation said that this job scam taint is beyond resolution,
00:44the legitimacy of the process has been affected, the whole process is tainted and so the hirings
00:50cannot go on as they were, they have been scrapped now.
00:53Remember, this was the order that had come in from the Calcutta High Court previously
00:57which was challenged in the Supreme Court when you had a petition essentially seeking
01:01that the hirings remain as was.
01:04The Supreme Court has refused agreeing with the high court in this matter.
01:07Srishti Ojha, legal correspondent is joining us with more details on this.
01:11Srishti, give us a sense of really what the Supreme Court had to say while essentially
01:15upholding what the Calcutta High Court had said on this matter.
01:17Well, after this, definitely a big order.
01:20We are talking about the appointments of around 25,000 teaching and non-teaching posts
01:25in both government and government-aided schools in 2016 which were done by the West Bengal
01:29SSC.
01:30This was under challenge before Calcutta High Court and High Court's order was then challenged
01:35by the state of West Bengal before Supreme Court.
01:37Now the Supreme Court has today upheld the high court order which terminated the appointment
01:43of tainted candidates in this particular, tainted candidates in 2016 and the direction
01:50that they gave where they were supposed to also return back their salaries.
01:53The court has made some of the changes in direction while mostly upholding the high
01:57court order, has made some changes in the direction which were issued.
02:02The court has basically divided it into three categories.
02:05The tainted candidates, their appointments are terminated and they have to return their
02:09salaries as well.
02:11As far as untainted candidates are concerned, their appointments will also be terminated.
02:18However, they will not have to return back their salaries.
02:22The court has said that even for candidates who have not been specifically declared tainted,
02:28entire process has rightly been declared null and void and due to several violations, their
02:33appointments will also have to go.
02:35The third category is of untainted candidates who were appointed to other government departments
02:42before they took part in this process.
02:45Those persons will be able to apply to those earlier departments and that entire process
02:49will have to be completed in three months.
02:51But a big remark that has come from the Supreme Court here is that the entire selection process
02:57in this case was vitiated and tainted beyond resolution because that was one thing that
03:01the court was considering during the hearing that whether it is possible to distinguish
03:07the tainted and untainted bit or was the entire process vitiated to a point that the entire
03:13process needs to go.
03:14So, the court has agreed with the High Court's conclusion.
03:17They have said that there were attempts also to cover up which further tainted the process
03:21and thereafter leading to the entire legitimacy of the process getting affected.
03:28Back to you.
03:29You know with this kind of an order coming in from the Supreme Court, there will again
03:33be a focus on the entire scam and the allegations against the Mamata government in this job
03:38scam, the hiring of 25,000 teachers with the Supreme Court saying very clearly that the
03:43entire process is tainted.
03:46It's not limited to just one aspect which is why they've said that the whole process
03:50needs to be scrapped as the Calcutta High Court also had said.
03:53Srishti, just in fact to throw some context really to what the Supreme Court has said,
03:58can you also give us details of really the petition?
04:01How really did they argue against the scrapping of this entire process?
04:10Well, we're talking about West Bengal's plea against this particular High Court order.
04:14Now, the state before, the state had before Supreme Court said that instead of segregating
04:20a...
04:21Srishti, just stay with me.
04:23Stay with me Srishti.
04:24I just want to bring in a view from the Bharatiya Janata Party on this.
04:27Priyanka Tibrewal joining us on this broadcast.
04:29Priyanka, we're now putting out a news break of the Supreme Court going ahead and upholding
04:34the Calcutta High Court decision of scrapping the Bengal teacher hirings.
04:38Your reaction to this?
04:40See, in the very initial stage only we knew that scams are there in the government, each
04:47and every department, whether it was education, whether it was food, whether it was health.
04:52Then also investigation process followed, and after investigation things came out that
04:57there were scams like this.
04:59So that is what the High Court said, that there has been a lot of irregularities in
05:06the entire process, and the process had to be done freshly.
05:10So again, when the Supreme Court is now on the same opinion, so you can understand that
05:15what kind of government this is, which is running in West Bengal, because the Chief
05:19Minister is busy reciting poems in London, head, shoulders, knees and toes, and this
05:25is what the ministers are doing here.
05:28They are playing with the careers of innocent children who have studied, of innocent youth
05:34who had appeared.
05:35So those who paid the money to them, their names were there in the list.
05:40This is all which has come out in the investigation.
05:43No but previously when, you know, Mamata Banerjee, Priyanka Tibrewal was asked about this, she
05:48dismissed all of these claims of there being a scam.
05:51Even on the Calcutta High Court order, she denounced their entire verdict.
05:54Oh, this is a shameless government and a Chief Minister which we have in West Bengal.
06:01Because after so many scams, you know, other governments, maybe you will find that they
06:04are going to the jail because one or two scams are coming out.
06:07This government, there are scams in each and every department.
06:10Thereafter, she has the audacity to go to Oxford and then deliver a speech on, a kindergarten
06:15speech to the children of a graduate level.
06:18Now look at the audacity she has.
06:20So this is what, you know, in Hindi we say, that those who have no shame, who have no
06:25respect, how can they be disrespected?
06:27So this is the status of the government here in West Bengal.
06:30They have lost any kind of respect they had.
06:31Okay.
06:32Priyanka Tibrewal, thank you very much for joining us with your view on this news break
06:35coming in.
06:36Let's also get you another reaction from the BGP Union Minister, Sukanta Machundar speaking.
06:41Today, because of the Supreme Court's ruling, the verdict, in Bengal, around 26,000-25,000
06:50teachers, non-teachers, who have been working since 2016, have lost their jobs.
06:57All the families are on the streets.
06:59Who is responsible for this?
07:01Mamata Banerjee is responsible.
07:03And Mamata Banerjee is responsible because Mamata Banerjee, the people of her party,
07:08who had earned money, who are not capable, she gave them jobs.
07:14To save Mamata Banerjee, to save the money that her party leaders had taken, Mamata Banerjee
07:21set all those capable people, who had worked hard, who had jobs, all of them on fire.
07:32More than 25,000-26,000 families have come on the streets.
07:36Mamata Banerjee is responsible for this.
07:38And the BGP will take action against this.
07:41As soon as Ram Navami is over, the BGP will take action.
07:47And we will start the agitation right now.
07:51And the BGP, after 6th April, after Ram Navami, will take action against the government.
08:00Mamata Banerjee.
08:30Remember, the TMC government has been brazening it out, claiming there is no evidence of a scam.
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