When Inquiry Reveals Systemic Irregularities That Undermine Integrity Of Entire Selection Process, The Result Should Be Cancelled In Its Entirety: Supreme Court
The Supreme Court upheld the Order Cancelling the entire selection process conducted by WBSSC or the recruitment of non-teaching staff.
The Supreme Court has held that when an inquiry reveals systemic irregularities that undermine the integrity of the entire selection process, the result should be cancelled in its entirety.
The Court upheld the impugned Judgment of the Calcutta High Court, which cancelled the entire 2016 selection process conducted by the West Bengal Central School Service Commission (WBSSC) for the recruitment of non-teaching staff in Groups C and D, and Assistant Teachers for Classes IX to XII. The Court, however, added that if and when possible, segregation of tainted and untainted candidates should be done in consonance with fairness and equity.
A Bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar held, “When an in-depth factual inquiry reveals systemic irregularities, such as malaise or fraud, that undermine the integrity of the entire selection process, the result should be cancelled in its entirety. However, if and when possible, segregation of tainted and untainted candidates should be done in consonance with fairness and equity.”
Senior Advocate Prateek Dhar represented the Appellants, while Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for the Respondents.
Brief Facts
The Appellants before the Court were the selectees, some of whom had been working for over five years. They fall into two categories: (i) selectees with purported evidence and material indicating wrongdoing and (ii) other selectees who claim valid selection without any wrongdoing. The State of West Bengal and the WBSSC also challenged the impugned Judgment, while the Respondents were the original Writ Petitioners and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which conducted the investigation.
The implicated selectees argued that the evidence against them was weak, that they were punished without an inquiry, and that they should be presumed innocent until convicted. Other selectees, along with the State of West Bengal and WBSSC, contended that the High Court erred in annulling the entire selection process and should have only cancelled appointments of those specifically found guilty.
In 2016, WBSSC initiated a selection process which included interviews and personality tests, and the final status rank list was published on the WBSSC website.
The High Court at Calcutta received Writ Petitions alleging illegalities in the recruitment process, including issues such as appointment letters being received without the ability to join, non-publication of counselling lists, rank jumping, ignoring candidates on waiting lists, pick-and-choose methods in selecting candidates, and appointments given to those not on merit or waiting lists.
WBSSC filed affidavits acknowledging some illegalities and mistakes but could not verify the number of illegal recommendations. A committee was formed to scrutinise appointments of non-teaching staff, and it was revealed that WBSSC could not produce the original OMR sheets. WBSSC cited a decision to destroy physical OMR sheets one year after results, despite rules not permitting this for non-teaching staff.
WBSSC terminated the services of some candidates and withdrew recommendations for others due to detected illegalities. The High Court directed the CBI to investigate the alleged illegalities, leading to the registration of four FIRs. The CBI submitted reports to the High Court, and the Division Bench ultimately set aside the entire selection process.
Court’s Reasoning
The Supreme Court held that “The decision to cancel the selection en masse must be based on the satisfaction derived from sufficient material collected through a fair and thorough investigation. It is not necessary for the material collected to conclusively prove malpractice beyond a reasonable doubt. The standard of evidence should be reasonable certainty of systemic malaise. The probability test is applicable.”
“Despite the inconvenience caused to untainted candidates, when broad and deep manipulation in the selection process is proven, due weightage has to be given to maintaining the purity of the selection process…Individual notice and hearing may not be necessary in all cases for practical reasons when the facts establish that the entire selection process is vitiated with illegalities at a large scale,” the Bench explained.
The Court remarked, “In our opinion, this is a case wherein the entire selection process has been vitiated and tainted beyond resolution. Manipulations and frauds on a large scale, coupled with the attempted cover-up, have dented the selection process beyond repair and partial redemption. The credibility and legitimacy of the selection are denuded.”
The Court referred to the decision in Inderpreet Singh Kahlon v. State of Punjab (2006) to elucidate the principles which must be adhered to when cancelling appointments. The three-pronged test outlined: “First, there must be satisfaction regarding the sufficiency of the material collected so as to enable the State to conclude that the selection process was tainted. Second, to determine whether the illegalities committed go to the root of the matter and vitiate the entire selection process, such satisfaction should be based on a reasoned and thorough investigation conducted in a fair and transparent manner. Third, there must be sufficient material to support the conclusion that the majority of the appointments were part of the fraudulent purpose or that the system itself was corrupt.”
“For candidates not specifically found to be tainted, the entire selection process has been rightly declared null and void due to the egregious violations and illegalities, which violated Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. As such, the appointments of these candidates are cancelled. However, candidates who are already employed need not be asked to refund or restitute any payments made to them. However, their services will be terminated. Furthermore, no candidate can be appointed once the entire examination process and results have been declared void,” the Bench clarified.
Consequently, the Court held, “Accordingly, we uphold the impugned judgment cancelling en bloc / entire selection process but have made certain modifications in the directions issued by the High Court. The appeals are disposed of in aforesaid terms.”
Accordingly, the Supreme Court disposed of the Appeal.
Cause Title: State Of West Bengal v. Baishakhi Bhattacharyya (Chatterjee) & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 437)
Appearance:
Appellant: Senior Advocates Prateek Dhar, Vibha Datta Makhija, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Shyam Divan, Siddharth Bhatnagar, C.S. Vaidyanthan, M.R. Shamshad, Kalyan Bandyopadhyay, Uday Gupta, Ashok Bhan, Shailesh Madiyal, R. BalaSubramanian, Vinay Navare, Mahabir Singh, Kapil Sibal, Mukul Rohatgi, Haripriya Padmanabhan, Vikas Singh, Maneka Guruswamy, Rahul Kaushik, Rachana Shrivastava, S. Muralidhar, N.S. Nappinai, C.S. Vaidyanathan, Indira Jaisingh, Milon Mukherjee, Dinesh Dwivedi, Ramkrishnan Virraghavan, Devadatt Kamat, Meenakshi Arora, Rajiv Shakdher, Kaveeta Wadia, R. Anand Padmanabhan, S. Guru Krishnakumar, P.S. Patwalia, Dushyant A. Dave, Kalyan Bandhopadhyay, Anindya Lahiri, Ritzu Ghoshal, Sanjay Hegde, Sanjoy Ghose, Ranjit Kumar and Jaideep Gupta; et al
Respondent: Solicitor General Tushar Mehta; Additional Solicitor General K.M. Nataraj and Suryaprakash V. Raju; Senior Advocates Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, Rauf Rahim, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, Maninder Singh, V. Mohana, Shadan Farasat and Amit Anand Tiwari; et al