Calcutta High Court permits West Bengal govt and SSC to appeal single bench order barring tainted 2016 candidates. Division bench grants early hearing request amid ongoing teacher recruitment row.
KOLKATA: Today, on July 8, In a major development in the 2016 West Bengal school jobs scam, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court permitted the West Bengal government and the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) to challenge a recent order passed by a single bench that had barred “tainted” candidates from participating in the ongoing recruitment process.
This decision came just a day after the single bench, led by Justice Saugata Bhattacharya, directed the WBSSC to proceed with the fresh recruitment process but strictly debarred those candidates whose appointments were cancelled due to irregularities in the 2016 selection process.
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The division bench headed by Justice Soumen Sen granted liberty to the state and the WBSSC to file an appeal against that direction.
The division bench allowed the state and the WBSSC lawyers to move forward with the appeal and also heard their plea for an early hearing on the matter.
The lawyers had
“prayed for permission of the court to file the appeal and sought an early hearing.”
The single bench, while issuing directions on Monday, had made it clear that the state government and the WBSSC must go ahead with the recruitment of school teachers as per the new notification dated May 30, 2025.
This notification had been issued following the Supreme Court’s orders to begin a fresh recruitment drive to fill up vacancies in state-run and state-aided schools.
However, Justice Bhattacharya stated that
“in the said selection process, identified tainted candidates will not be permitted to participate.”
This meant that those individuals whose names appeared in the list of nearly 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staff whose appointments were scrapped by the Supreme Court could not apply again.
Further tightening the process, the single bench ordered that
“if any tainted candidate has applied in order to offer his or her candidature under the said recruitment notification, the same will stand cancelled.”
Justice Bhattacharya also stressed that the recruitment process must adhere to the Supreme Court’s timeline.
He directed that
“the time schedule fixed by the Supreme Court in its order of April 17 be strictly adhered to by the authorities to bring the selection process to a logical conclusion.”
To recall, the Supreme Court in its April 17, 2025 order, had annulled the appointments of nearly 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staff in state-run and aided institutions, citing serious flaws and corruption in the original recruitment process conducted in 2016.
After Justice Bhattacharya dictated his order, the lawyer representing the WBSSC requested a temporary stay on the direction barring tainted candidates from participating in the selection process.
However, the judge firmly turned down the plea.
“Justice Bhattacharya refused the prayer after due consideration.”
The case before the single bench was triggered by several petitioners who had raised objections to the recruitment process initiated under the May 30 notification.
The recruitment aimed to fill posts of assistant teachers for upper primary levels and classes 9 to 12 in government and government-aided schools.
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These petitioners challenged the fresh recruitment, arguing that the tainted candidates from the previous selection process must not be allowed to participate again.
Now, with the division bench giving the green signal to the state and the WBSSC to file an appeal, the matter is expected to come up for a detailed hearing soon.
Background of the Case
The case traces back to the 2016 State Level Selection Test (SLST) conducted by the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) for recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in government-run and government-aided schools.
After the recruitment process was completed, several complaints began surfacing, alleging large-scale irregularities, bribery, and favoritism in the appointment of thousands of candidates.
Whistleblowers and aggrieved candidates alleged that jobs were sold in exchange for money and that many “undeserving” individuals were appointed by manipulating marks, answer sheets, and merit lists.
These allegations led to multiple public interest litigations being filed in the Calcutta High Court demanding an investigation.
The court later ordered a probe, and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was brought in. During the investigation, it was discovered that widespread corruption had taken place in the recruitment process, involving senior officials, politicians, and middlemen.
Several high-profile arrests were made, including that of former Education Minister Partha Chatterjee.
In response, the Calcutta High Court cancelled the appointments of 25,753 candidates, stating that the entire process had been compromised.
The order affected both Group-C and Group-D staff, as well as assistant teachers appointed through the tainted panel.
The matter reached the Supreme Court of India, which, in April 2024, upheld the Calcutta High Court’s ruling. The apex court confirmed that the recruitment was fraudulent and violated constitutional principles of equality and fairness under Articles 14 and 16.
It held that the entire recruitment process was “vitiated” due to “manipulation and fraud on a large scale”.
Following this, the West Bengal government announced a fresh recruitment drive to fill 44,203 vacancies, which the Supreme Court ordered must be completed before December 31, 2025.
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