The West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) has removed 269 “tainted” candidates from the ongoing assistant teacher recruitment process and urged the public to alert it about any others who may have slipped into the process unnoticed.
In a notice issued on Friday, the commission said the disqualified candidates also included several physically handicapped applicants who had previously appeared in the tainted lists linked to the 2016 recruitment examinations.
According to the commission, the candidates were originally part of the 2016 first State Level Selection Test (SLST) for assistant teachers for Classes 9-10 and 11-12, as well as the third Regional Level Selection Test (RLST) for non-teaching staff. Many of them had been identified earlier among the 1,806 tainted candidates flagged in relation to the 2016 recruitment scam, yet were still able to reapply for the ongoing 2nd SLST 2025 cycle.
In order to prevent such candidates from appearing in the September 7 (for Classes 9-10) and September 14 (for Classes 11-12) recruitment exams, the commission stated that the admit cards issued in the names of the tainted candidates had been cancelled. Despite this, several candidates reportedly slipped through the filtering process, and some had managed not only to take the exams but also to clear the written test and reach the ongoing document verification stage for the Classes 11-12 category.
According to officials in the commission, some of the applicants may have altered personal information, academic details, or the names of their institutions in order to evade preliminary scrutiny. Since no in-person verification was conducted during the application stage, discrepancies were expected to surface during document verification.
Verification for the Classes 11-12 category will continue until December 4. For the other category, only written exam results have been announced, while the preliminary interview list and document verification schedule are yet to be announced.
List of 269 candidates not made public
The commission has urged anyone who identifies a tainted candidate in the current process to notify its advocate-on-record through a formal letter so that “appropriate action” can be taken. While the commission has acknowledged removing 269 candidates, the detailed list of their names has not yet been made public. Sources in the Commission informed that it will be released in due course.
In April this year, the Supreme Court ordered the termination of jobs of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff in government-aided secondary and higher secondary schools, calling the 2016 recruitment process of the commission “tainted”. After an appeal by the state secondary education board, the court said “untainted” employees would receive salaries till December, while 1,806 “tainted” teachers were barred from returning to schools.
As per the commission’s current notice, 23,312 assistant teachers will be recruited for Classes 9-10 and 12,514 for Classes 11-12. Around 20,000 candidates have been called for interviews for teaching classes 11-12, including about 9,500 fresh candidates. A senior official said the names have been shortlisted in a 1:1.6 ratio—16 candidates for every 10 posts.
On May 30, the commission issued a notice for the recruitment of 35,726 teachers in total for Classes 9-10 and 11-12, in line with the Supreme Court directive to issue the notification by May 31. In July, the commission announced the new examination dates.
In July, the Calcutta High Court dismissed an appeal filed by the commission and the state government seeking permission for “tainted” teachers to participate in the fresh recruitment process. Following a Supreme Court order, the commission published the names and roll numbers of 1,806 “tainted” candidates and cancelled their admit cards on August 30. It released a separate list of 3,512 “tainted” non-teaching staff in November, following directions from the Supreme Court.