The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the demands of nearly 350 teaching and non-teaching staff working in madrasas in West Bengal for settlement and payment of salary arrears, holding that their appointment violated state notifications.
A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih passed the order while deciding a batch of 49 petitions filed by employees who were aggrieved by the findings of the legal commission under the West Bengal School Service Commission (MSC Act) Act, 2008, which rejected their settlement claims.
Instead of considering the 350 cases individually, the court considered 13 individual cases selected by the lawyers representing the petitioners as the most worthy of conscription.
On enquiry, the bench held that “since none of these thirteen petitioners has made any case for interference, we are not inclined to consider the claim of any of the other petitioners.”
“The appointments in question are a disgrace to the regime and must therefore be erased and not protected,” the order, which dismissed the entire batch of 350 people, said.
As matters have been pending before several benches of the Supreme Court since 2024, some of the petitioners have obtained orders to protect their jobs and directions to release salaries till their matters are finally decided.
After vacating the interim orders, the bench said, “The appointments have not been made as per the first notification or second notification (of the state government) and the state cannot be attached to any liability for release of payment.”
It lifted the restriction on the state authorities to expel these petitioners from service and direct the disbursement of salaries and bonuses, and said: “The vacant positions scheduled can now be filled according to the Commission’s recommendations.”
In November 2025, the court merged all petitions into one body to avoid multiple procedures. The petitioners argued that the MSC Act, 2008, was struck down by the Calcutta High Court in December 2015 as it introduced the concept of selection for appointment to vacant posts of teachers and non-teaching staff through an expert body – School Service Commission. The minority viewed this as an interference in their rights to manage and administer institutions.
The law stipulates that the committee’s recommendation is mandatory for any selection, and warns that any selection that violates the law will have no effect in the law. The Supreme Court’s decision was appealed to the Supreme Court, which formally upheld the 2008 law in Mohamed’s case. Rafiq v Administrative Committee, Kontai Rahamanya Secondary School (2020). Later, in another round of contempt petitions decided in 2023, the Supreme Court reiterated its view.
Meanwhile, the state government issued two notifications in 2015 and 2016 while the case was pending in the Supreme Court to ensure that every appointment to posts in madrassas in the state was announced and the selections were approved by district inspectors.
In a joint reading of the Notifications and the 2008 Act, the body which examined 350 cases asked the petitioners to ascertain whether the school to which they were appointed had a valid recognition granted by the World Bank Council for School Education and, further, if the Management Committee of such school had been duly constituted under the rules prescribed by the said Council.
If any of the petitioners succeeded in crossing these two limits, the court asked them to fulfill several aspects – educational qualification, position for which they were selected, staff pattern at the time of selection, details of the advertisement issued, nature of examination given before selection and whether approval of the District Inspector was taken before and after the selection process.
After considering the 13 cases submitted as best examples for consideration, the bench said: “These 13 petitioners have raised false allegations, which are clearly devoid of any foundation… Proper consideration of the material on record completely contradicts the contentions of the 13 petitioners that they were validly appointed to the schools in question.”
The court asked that if these 13 cases were the “worst victims” of arbitrary procedures, “one can only speculate on what merits, if any, the other cases reveal to justify invoking the jurisdiction of this court to obtain relief.”
Rejecting the entire batch of defenses as “erroneous”, the Court took a lenient view and refrained from imposing costs as the petitioners would bear undue burden after being deprived of their arrears of salaries and allowances.
