West Bengal teacher recruitment case: Supreme Court upholds High Court’s decision

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the order of the Calcutta High Court directing the cancellation of appointments to 25,753 teaching and non-teaching posts made by the West Bengal School Service Commission in 2016. The Supreme Court termed the entire recruitment process as tainted and made some changes to the order of the Calcutta High Court.

The Supreme Court said that the credibility and validity of the selection process has been lost, so the directions of the Calcutta High Court have been modified. The petition challenging the CBI inquiry into the creation of super-numeric posts by the West Bengal government will be heard on April 4.

On May 7, 2024, a bench headed by then CJI DY Chandrachud stayed the Calcutta High Court order cancelling school jobs. The CBI was allowed to continue investigating the alleged scam but was barred from taking any punitive action against the candidates or officials.

In the third week of April 2024, the Calcutta High Court cancelled the appointment of candidates selected from the expired panel and ordered them to refund the entire salary received during their tenure with 12 per cent annual interest.

A division bench of Calcutta High Court comprising Justices Debangsu Basak and Shabbar Rashidi ordered the investigating agency to continue probing the case and directed the WBSSC to start a fresh recruitment process.

In July 2023, the Supreme Court had set aside an interim order passed by the Calcutta High Court, which had terminated the services of 32,000 primary teachers and directed the West Bengal government to complete the recruitment process for new posts within three months.