Calcutta HC rejects SSC-tainted teacher list, seeks detailed revision

The Calcutta High Court on Dec 7 struck down the West Bengal School Service Commission's (SSC) list of 1,806 "tainted" candidates barred from schoolteacher positions.

Justice Amrita Sinha directed SSC to prepare a revised list specifying reasons for each classification.

“Categories like rank jumping, OMR sheet manipulation, should also be mentioned in the list of tainted candidates,” Justice Amrita Sinha said.

The court set a deadline of Feb 11 for the new publication, coinciding with the next hearing.

This follows SSC's Nov 27 release of the list, which covered secondary and higher secondary teachers from 2016 exams. It included roll numbers, names, birth dates, parents' names, and subjects but omitted taint reasons.

The list aimed to block these candidates from the Sept 7 and 14, 2025, selection tests, per Supreme Court orders.

An SSC official commented, “The list was published to make sure these candidates could not write the selection tests on Sept 7 and 14, 2025. The Supreme Court said no one from the tainted list should be allowed to participate in the fresh recruitment exercise. How will mentioning the category of guilt help in any way?”

The official noted SSC had detailed guilt categories in a prior segregated list submitted to a division bench under Justice Debanshu Basak.

SSC Chairperson Siddhartha Majumder confirmed, “The commission will come up with a fresh list as ordered by the court.”

Earlier, SSC published a tainted list on Aug 30, 2025, per Supreme Court instructions to exclude them from tests.

A second release on Nov 27 addressed claims that tainted names appeared in higher secondary teacher interview lists.

Justice Sinha's Nov 19 interim order had required a full list with addresses and details right away.