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Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Friday restrained the West Bengal government from implementing a scheme till September 26 to provide monetary support to non-teaching staff who lost their jobs following a Supreme Court judgment that held the selection process tainted.Observation Made By Justice Amrita SinhaDelivering the interim order, Justice Amrita Sinha remarked, "Permitting the state to proceed with the scheme will tacitly support fraudulent activity, cheating and corruption." The court had on June 9 reserved judgment on three petitions challenging the state's proposal to pay Rs 25,000 to Group C and Rs 20,000 to Group D employees whose appointments were cancelled by the Supreme Court.In her ruling, Justice Sinha directed the state government not to implement or further implement the scheme until September 26 or until further orders, whichever is earlier.She also instructed the state to file its affidavit in response within four weeks, with petitioners allowed to reply within a subsequent two-week period.The state government had announced the scheme to provide "limited livelihood support and social security on humanitarian grounds" to families of non-teaching staff recruited through the 2016 SSC process, which the apex court had invalidated in April. Nearly 26,000 teaching and non-teaching employees lost their jobs as a result.Observing that the state ought to appreciate the supremacy of the rule of law, Justice Sinha said the law laid down by the highest court of the land is binding upon all and "everybody will be bound to follow the same no matter how unpalatable it is." Maintaining that faith and trust of the public in the judicial system cannot be permitted to be eroded, she said the act of the state in formulating the scheme, prima facie, appears to overreach the order passed by this high court, which was affirmed by the Supreme Court."The state is providing financial assistance to candidates whose job was terminated by the order of the court as the same was result of cheating," she said.She observed that once the highest court of the land decided the issue of illegal appointment conclusively and opined that the appointments were a result of fraud, "no person who was the beneficiary of a fraudulent act of the statutory authority ought to be provided any support, that too, from the public exchequer." Justice Sinha said if, eventually, after hearing all the parties in the writ petition, the court opines that the scheme is in violation of the legal provisions, then there will hardly be any scope to get refund of the money paid to these persons."The same will amount to unjust enrichment of certain persons on the strength of the money to be paid from the coffers of the state," the court observed."The court is of the opinion that none has a vested right, far less fundamental right, to receive payment from the state exchequer without performing any duty and/or work," Justice Sinha said.She said it does not appear that the fundamental right of any of the so-called beneficiaries will be infringed if an order is passed restraining the state from giving any effect to the scheme for the time being.Noting that the beneficiaries have been found to be tainted by the Supreme Court, the bench said, "Payment to such tainted candidates amounts to giving undue benefit to them." The court said that since the petitioners are also jobless and are in need of financial assistance, as such, they rightly feel that they have been deprived of the benefit of the scheme."Proceeding to provide payment to the tainted candidates instead of proceeding to obtain refunds of the payment received by them, calls for interference by the court," Justice Sinha said.Regarding the state's contention that the petitions should not be entertained as a review proceeding is pending before the Supreme Court, she said mere filing of it will not tantamount to continuation of the proceeding, which was conclusively decided by the Supreme Court by passing the judgment on April 3.Opposing the petition, state advocate general Kishore Dutta said waitlisted candidates, who are the petitioners, cannot have any grievance in this scheme.He said the petitioners should approach the Supreme Court since they claim that the scheme violates the order of the apex court.The state government and the School Service Commission have filed respective review petitions over the judgement annulling the 25,753 appointments before the Supreme Court. (Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)