Calcutta High Court finally upheld the West Bengal School Service Commission’s authority to conduct the teacher’s recruitment examination under the prescribed rules. This Wednesday, the High Court gave permission, citing that the new rule is more stringent and student centric.
A bunch of appeals made by a group of candidates against a single judge bench ordered by the Division Bench of Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Smita Das De . By dismissing the appeals, the division bench said, ” Although the WBSSC and WBBSE are responsible for the present impasse that has adversely impacted and affected the education system, it is high time that all the vacancies are filled up if required by the clubbing the vacancies as the separate recruitment process for vacancies declared in 2016 and beyond it would cause serious inconvenience and delay in filling up existing vacancies.”
The Supreme Court, though, cancelled the whole 2016 SSC recruitment process due to widespread irregularities, nullifying appointments of over 25,000 teaching and non-teaching staff. The recruitment notification was made during the left front regime in 2010 and the examination was held in 2011. After some of the candidates moved to HC, the commission now gave permission to conduct a fresh examination.
The notification by WBSSC for recruitment of 35,726 teachers — 23,212 for classes 9 and 10, and 12,514 for classes 11 and 12 , on May 30, by the Supreme Court to initiate a fresh recruitment process. The controversy arose when the SSC decided to conduct the examination as per the guidelines approved in May 2025, instead of the 2016 guidelines favoured by petitioners.
However, in April, the Supreme Court ordered for the cancellation of the recruitment process of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff across government-aided secondary and higher secondary schools calling the 2016 recruitment “tainted”.
The candidates who have appealed, have already passed the 2016 recruitment examination but never got jobs due to scandal. “We have been deprived of jobs because of corrupt practices. Now we are being discriminated against by extending relaxations to those in service,” said petitioner Lubana Parvin.
The application for the new test will continue from June 16 till July 21. The written examination is postponed till September.
