Salute to Supreme Court Verdict: West Bengal Teachers’ Recruitment Scam

The Supreme Court, on April 3, 2025, invalidated the appointment of 25,753 teachers and other staff in West Bengal in state-run and state-aided schools and termed the entire selection process “vitiated and tainted,” which means corruption was involved.

Corruption, as defined by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. There are four types of corruption outlined by the UNODC:

1. Gaining Favor,
2. Accepting Bribes,
3. Misappropriating Property or Authority
4. Breaching Public Trust.
   The unfortunate level of corruption was observed in West Bengal, where many ruling party leaders were involved and prosecuted from time to time. April 3, 2025, is a historic day as the Supreme Court upheld the Calcutta High Court order, canceling the appointment of more than 25,000 teachers and non-teaching staff under the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC). The Supreme Court mentioned that the entire selection process is “vitiated by manipulation and fraud” and its credibility and legitimacy “denuded.” Here, each word carries a deeper meaning of corruption. The bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice PV Sanjay Kumar said there was no reason to interfere with the High Court order. The court said the appointments resulted from cheating and were thus fraudulent. While promulgating the verdict, the court observed, “In our opinion, this is a case wherein the entire selection process has been vitiated and tainted beyond resolution. Manipulations and frauds on a large scale, coupled with the attempted cover-up, have dented the selection process beyond repair and partial redemption. The credibility and legitimacy of the selection are denuded,” the court said in its order. The court noted that the candidates not explicitly found to be tainted won’t have to refund the salaries they have received over the years. “However, their services will be terminated. Furthermore, no candidate can be appointed once the examination process and results have been declared void.”
   The West Bengal Government challenged the High Court order in the Supreme Court and pressed for the segregation of tainted and untainted candidates. I wonder why the State Government used the words ‘segregation of tainted and untainted candidates.’ This means many in the State were aware of corruption in the selection process. It may be mentioned from the website ‘ddnews.gov.in/’ on April 22, 2024, the Calcutta High Court’s division bench, led by Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Shabbar Rashidi, had cancelled 25,753 appointments made by WBSSC. The ruling came after it was found that many of these appointments were tainted by corruption, with candidates allegedly securing jobs by paying money, making it impossible to distinguish between legitimate and ineligible applicants. Further, by quoting the website, it is noteworthy to mention that Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya, a senior advocate in the Calcutta High Court and Rajya Sabha member from CPI(M), expressed regret that some “eligible” candidates would suffer due to the ruling. He stated that the scale of corruption in the recruitment process made it impossible to separate genuine candidates from ineligible ones. “The nature of institutional corruption in the entire selection process was so rampant that it became impossible to segregate the ‘genuine’ candidates from ‘ineligible’ candidates. The apex court repeatedly questioned WBSSC on whether such segregation was possible or not, but the Commission was unable to come up with any definite answer,” Bhattacharya said.
   The worst level of corruption occurred because ordinary people /Aam Admi suffered. Unfortunately, many genuine candidates suffered because of corruption by some WBSSC officials. When the next teacher selection occurs, I suggest the Supreme Court or High Court monitor the selection process; otherwise, corruption may crop up again because it is an easy way to earn money.
   Prof Shankar Chatterjee, Hyderabad