The main legal point established in the judgment is the importance of procedural fairness and the principles of natural justice in administrative actions such as CBI investigations and termination of appointments.

ORDER :

1. The present set of petitions except SLP (C) Nos. 17649-17650/2022 arises out of a judgment of a Division Bench of the High Court at Calcutta delivered on 2nd September 2022, sustaining, in substance a set of orders passed by a Single Judge directing investigation by the CBI into the allegations of irregularities in the recruitment process of Assistant Primary Teachers. Such recruitment took place through the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) examination 2014 which was held in the year 2015. A slew of other directions has also been issued by the Single Judge and we shall refer to them to the extent necessary later in this order. Altogether 23 lakh candidates participated in the selection process for filling up approximately 43,000 vacancies and about 40,000 candidates were appointed. SLP (C) Nos. 17649-17650/2022 has been filed by the petitioner in SLP (C) Nos. 16325-16326 of 2022 directly assailing the order of the Single Judge passed on 27th September, 2022 (in WPA No. 2005 of 2022 and WPA No. 15010 of 2022) by which the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was directed to register a case and take certain steps in relation to OMR sheets of the candidates who took part in the said examination.

2. The Division Bench considered in the impugned judgment/orders passed in two writ petitions brought by unsuccessful candidates. In the first writ petition (registered as WP No. 7907 of 2019) applicants were Ramesh Malik and eight other aspirants for the said posts and this writ petition was filed in the year 2019. The petitioners in this proceeding sought cancellation of appointment of the private respondent impleaded therein, inter-alia, on the ground that appointments were made through corrupt process and not on the basis of merit and performance of the successful candidates. In the other writ petition filed by one Soumen Nandy, registered as WPA No. 9979 of 2022, complaint was nondisclosure of certain information with regard to the 68 candidates pertaining to their answer scripts. These were in OMR sheets. From the prayers of the petitioner in the said writ application, a copy of which has been annexed to SLP (C) No. 17137 of 2022, we do not find particulars of the information he has asked for. In both the writ petitions, however, Court monitored CBI investigation had been asked for.

3. There are also certain other writ petitions filed questioning legality of the recruitment process, but orders passed in these proceedings do not appear to have been appealed against before the Division Bench in the judgment which has been assailed before us. In the judgment impugned in this batch of proceedings, the Division Bench dealt with a set of orders passed on 13th June, 15th June, 17th June, 20th June and 21st June, 2022. The next series of orders, as we find from the materials available before us, were passed on 19th July, 20th July, 22nd July, 25th July, 29th July and 1st September 2022. These orders were not under appeal before the Division Bench but they are linked with the first set of orders.

4. The orders and directions passed by the Single Judge in the month of June can be categorized under three heads:

(i) Investigation by Central Bureau of Investigation

Direction has been issued by the Single Judge on CBI to start investigation by registering a case against the Board and start interrogating the President of the Board of primary education, Dr. Manik Bhattacharya as also the Secretary of the said Board. Said Manik Bhattacharya is the petitioner of SLP (C) Nos. 16325-16326 of 2022 and SLP (C) Nos. 17649-17650 of 2022. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) has also been directed to be constituted by the CBI for investigation. The SIT constitutes of senior officers from the CBI.

(ii) Invalidation of appointment of 269 candidates

The Single Judge has also, by the order passed on 13th June 2022, invalidated appointment given to 269 candidates (these candidates were not parties in either of the two writ petitions). 58 of these candidates h