Officials said the West Bengal Government was making foolproof arrangements to ensure the smooth conduct of the School Service Commission examinations scheduled for September 7 and 14, following the judicial cancellation of the previous recruitment process over widespread irregularities and malpractices.
Chief Secretary Manoj Pant held a virtual meeting on Friday with district magistrates, superintendents of police, and other top officials regarding the measures to be taken.
According to official sources, the chief secretary has stated that an officer of the rank of additional district magistrate will supervise the examination in each district, while officers of the rank of deputy magistrate will be present at each examination centre. The transport department has been asked to arrange for adequate buses, and Nabanna, the state secretariat, has requested the Railways to run sufficient local trains.
A government official will be present when the question papers are taken to the examination centres. Candidates will be frisked at all centres, with the police administration in each district deciding how this should be done. CCTV cameras are mandatory and mobile phones are prohibited in every centre. If any candidate is caught with a mobile phone, their examination will be cancelled.
The West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) will conduct examinations to fill 35,726 vacant posts of assistant teachers for Classes 9-10 and 11-12. The written examinations are to be held from 12 pm to 2 pm on September 7 for Classes 9-10 and on September 14 for Classes 11-12 .
Meanwhile, the WBSSC on Saturday reopened the application portal for the second State-Level Selection Test (SLST) 2025 for candidates who were appointed in the previous recruitment and later declared “untainted” following the cancellation of the 2016 recruitment process by the Supreme Court. The portal will remain open until 5 pm on September 2, and admit cards will be downloadable from the evening of September 3.
On July 10, a Calcutta High Court bench of Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Smita Das De upheld a single bench order that directed the WBSSC to debar the “tainted” candidates from the fresh recruitment process. The division bench questioned why the Government and the WBSSC were so keen on standing with the “identified-as-tainted” and “ineligible” candidates who had secured appointments through fraudulent means.
On July 7, the bench of Justice Sougata Bhattacharya not only debarred “tainted” candidates from the recruitment process but also directed that the WBSSC consider any application by such candidates deemed to be cancelled.
On April 3, the Supreme Court cancelled the appointments of nearly 26,000 teachers and non-teaching staff recruited through the 2016 selection process. Of these, 17,206 were teachers. While 15,403 of them, found not to be tainted, have been permitted to remain in service until December 31, 2025, the remaining 1,803 were deemed “tainted”.