A bench of the Calcutta High Court upheld the order of its single bench on Thursday (July 10, 2025), in which the West Bengal School Services Commission (SSC) was instructed to stop the tainted candidates identified for the 2016 selection process from participating in the recruitment process of 2025.
SSC recently issued a notification of the 2025 recruitment process. The single bench of Justice Saugat Bhattacharya had also ordered on Monday that if it is found that a tainted candidate has already applied for the job, then SSC considered such an application to be canceled. Challenging the order of the single bench, the West Bengal government and SSC moved to the bench, which dismissed their appeal and refused to intervene in the previous court instruction.
During the hearing on the appeal, the bench of Justice Saumen Sen and Justice Smita Das Dey questioned the state and SSC as to why they are so keen to stand with the tainted candidates of the 2016 process, who made appointments in fake ways.
The Supreme Court had canceled the entire panel on a large scale on the basis of corruption. On April 3, the Supreme Court had termed the appointment of 25,753 teachers and employees illegal in schools operated by the state government as illegal and called the entire selection process faulty. The Supreme Court, however, ordered on 17 April to extend the service period of the dismissed teachers who were found to be impeccable.
A section of the aggrieved teachers had moved the High Court challenging the 2025 recruitment guidelines of SSC, under which tainted teachers have been allowed to apply renewed and in fact maximum 10 additional marks have been given for experience.
Both the state and SSC argued that new guidelines that allow disqualified candidates to take the exam again have been created in the public interest so that equal opportunities can be available to all.