Govt push to recover ‘tainted’ pay, directive follows allegations of non-compliance before SC
Telegraph | 13 May 2026
The school education department has asked district magistrates across the state to take “onward steps” to recover salaries paid to “tainted” teaching and non-teaching staff appointed through a “vitiated” recruitment process.
A senior special secretary of the state government on Tuesday wrote to the district magistrates: “You are requested to take onward steps following the Memo.... and send to this office for the compilation of the action taken report to be placed before the Supreme Court.”
The step comes three days after the new government was sworn in.
In January, the department had written to district magistrates, asking them to take “expeditious steps to realise the amount of salaries/payments from the relevant candidates appointed under SLST/RLST-2017”.
An education department official said a fresh letter had been sent to the district magistrates asking them to pursue the matter, as a case alleging non-compliance with the recovery order has been filed in the Supreme Court.
Tuesday’s order says: “Some contempt petitions have been filed before the Supreme Court alleging the non-compliance of the Supreme Court order dated 03.04.2025, particularly the non-recovery of the amount from the tainted candidates.”
The Supreme Court, which in April last year terminated the jobs of 25,752 teaching and non-teaching staff at the secondary and higher secondary levels in government-aided schools over irregularities in the recruitment process.
Later, SSC uploaded a list of 1,809 “tainted” teachers following instructions from the apex court.
This was done following requests from Calcutta High Court to prevent them from participating in the fresh state-level selection test held in September last year.
The SSC subsequently published a list of 3,512 non-teaching school staff members (Group C and D), barring them from appearing in the fresh regional-level selection test held in March this year.
In January, the education department informed the Supreme Court about the steps being taken to recover salaries already paid to these “tainted” candidates.
“Since the Mamata Banerjee government did not pursue the issue after January, contempt petitions have been filed before the Supreme Court. The new government has therefore asked the district magistrates to take further steps,” said Swapan Mandal of the Bengal Teachers’ and Employees’ Association.