The Calcutta High Court has made an important decision regarding the recruitment of school teachers in West Bengal. The court upheld its earlier ruling that rejected the plea of candidates labeled as “tainted” or ineligible in the recent teacher selection process.
Last week, the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) released a list of 1,806 candidates who were marked as “tainted” because they obtained jobs through payments or unfair means. These candidates were declared ineligible to participate in future recruitment exams.
Some of these “tainted” candidates then challenged this list in court. They asked for permission to take part in the new teacher recruitment exam. But the single-judge bench, led by Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya, dismissed their plea, saying there was no reason to interfere with the WBSSC’s published list.
The court reasoned that this wasn’t a suitable case to change the list it had already approved. During the hearing, the judges also questioned why the “tainted” candidates had waited so long to raise their concerns.
Not satisfied, the same group of candidates then appealed to the division bench of the Calcutta High Court, which is a higher court. They argued that there might have been mistakes in filtering “tainted” candidates from the process. Senior lawyer and four-time TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee claimed there were errors in sorting the candidates.
However, the division bench, consisting of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Reetobrata Kumar Mitra, rejected this appeal. They pointed out that even if mistakes happened, the WBSSC officers could not keep their jobs if found guilty of wrongdoing. The court emphasized that since the Supreme Court had already given clear instructions on managing “tainted” candidates, there was no need for further debate at lower courts.
Justice Chakraborty clearly stated, “If you want to challenge this decision, you will have to go back to the Supreme Court.”
This verdict reinforces the strict stance of the courts against candidates involved in unfair practices and emphasizes that the recent recruitment process will continue without these “tainted” candidates.
