Bengal school recruitment scam: Exclude tainted candidates from fresh recruitment process in West Bengal, says HC

The Calcutta High Court directed the West Bengal government on Monday (July 7, 2025) to exclude ‘tainted” candidates from the fresh recruitment process being conducted by the West Bengal School Service Commission in 2025.

Justice Saugata Bhattacharya said that if any “tainted or identified ineligible” candidate has already applied, the application form should be rejected.

The High Court was hearing multiple petitions challenging the 2025 recruitment guidelines issued by the WBSSC, after the Supreme Court order on April 3 scrapped the entire 2016 SLST recruitment panel and annulled 25,753 appointments of teachers for classes IX-XII as well as Group C and Group D staff.

The High Court in its order on Monday (July 7, 2025) stated that the WBSSC will have to complete the fresh selection process as per the timeline set by the Supreme Court.

Senior Advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, referring to the April 3 judgement of the Supreme Court, said that the tainted have been completely knocked out from the recruitment process by the apex court order.  Mr. Bhattacharya said that the Supreme Court has not modified its April 3 order except to allow “untainted” candidates to continue till the end of this year. He added that the Supreme Court has allowed disabled candidates and “candidates who are not specifically tainted” to take part in the fresh selection process. Fresh hiring for over 44,000 posts started in the State on May 30. The Supreme Court has directed that the fresh recruitment process be completed by December 31, 2025.

Tainted by corruption

“Tainted” refers to candidates who used corruption and fraudulent means to get jobs, while “untainted” refers to teachers against whom there are no such allegations either by the WBSSC or CBI. Since the West Bengal government and WBSSC did not make a clear distinction on the number of tainted and untainted candidates, first the Calcutta High Court in 2024 and then the Supreme Court in April 2025 cancelled the entire panel.

Counsels appearing for the West Bengal government and WBSSC, however, argued that the Supreme Court has terminated jobs of tainted candidates, but it has not barred them from appearing in the examination.

Chinmoy Mondal, a leader of teachers who lost their jobs, said that even after so many developments, the State government wants to appoint “tainted” candidates. Mr. Mondal and other candidates have approached the Court, seeking a stay on the entire recruitment process, which the Court did not entertain. “It is clear that both the state government and the SSC are still hell-bent on standing with the tainted teachers who secured appointments by unfair means. But the court has rejected their argument,” Firdaus Shamim, an advocate for the petitioners, said.