
SC verdict: Judge-turned-MP suggests forming panel to segregate deserving and dishonest candidates
The Hindu
Former judge urges CM Banerjee to form committee to review invalidated teacher appointments in West Bengal.
A day after the Supreme Court cancelled over 25,000 school jobs in West Bengal, Calcutta High Court judge-turned-BJP MP Abhijit Gangopadhyay urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to form a committee comprising the advocate general and lawyers to find out a mechanism so that a deserving teacher can return to service.
The panel, headed by the Education Minister, should have the School Service Commission chairman and may also have Mr. Gangopadhyay himself, the former judge said on Friday (April 4, 2025), adding that a review petition can be filed in the Supreme Court to prepare a list of all those who secured the job honestly.
The ruling TMC rejected his suggestion, saying there cannot be reconciliation or settlement of the issue after the apex court’s order.
The top court on Thursday (April 3, 2025) invalidated the appointment of 25,753 teachers and other staff in state-run and state-aided schools and termed the entire selection process “vitiated and tainted”. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar upheld a Calcutta High Court verdict dated April 22, 2024, annulling the appointments.
“Rising above politics, my humble plea to Didi (Banerjee) is to take initiative to constitute such a committee. So far as my knowledge and experience goes, it is possible to differentiate between those who secured the job through fraudulent means and those who got it by their merit and hard work,” Mr. Gangopadhyay told reporters on Parliament premises.
Suggesting that a review petition be filed at the apex court for preparing a list of deserving candidates, he said, “We will urge the Supreme Court: Your honour, please note these people have not committed any impropriety. Please note these people don’t have any relation with the tainted ones. I think this can be possible even now.”
The Tamluk MP named eminent lawyer and CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, along with some other leading lawyers who had represented petitioners in the case in both the High Court and the Supreme Court, who could be on the panel. “If my name is considered, I can also be part of the committee,” he said.

There are two instances where the government has shifted out such establishments out of the core city areas. The APMC yard, which was operating out of N.T. Pet, was shifted to Yeshwanthpur in the late 1980s, and HAL airport was shut down for passenger traffic and a new airport was built near Devanahalli.