Mamata Banerjee says govt considering options to appoint 'tainted teachers' as Group C staff

Addressing a Teachers' Day programme in the city, the Chief Minister said her government is seeking legal advice to appoint the "tainted teachers" as Group C staff.

"After the teacher recruitment process is over, examinations for Group C and D posts will be held... I am taking legal advice if the 'tainted teachers' can be appointed to Group C or equivalent posts. We will make an announcement soon after legal consultations," she said.

Mamata made the announcement after the Calcutta High Court earlier this week rejected the petitions filed by "tainted" candidates who sought to appear in the fresh teacher recruitment drive called by the West Bengal government.

The petitions were filed by nearly 350 people whose names featured in the list of "tainted" candidates published by the government last week.

Justice Saugata Bhattacharya said the High Court won't interfere in the matter as the Supreme Court has already taken over the case related to the Bengal jobs scam.

The petitioners claim they are not tainted and their names were mistakenly included in the published list so they should be allowed in the fresh examination, which has been ordered by the Supreme Court that cancelled the entire 2016 recruitment panel owing to the scam.

Expressing unhappiness over the petitioners, the court said as quoted by The Indian Express, "…Enough is enough, you were not permitted to work, then you did not come, why now?"

On August 28, 2025, the Supreme Court directed the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) to publish, within seven days, a list of candidates from the 2016 recruitment batch whose selections were voided due to tainted irregularities.

In compliance, WBSSC uploaded the list on August 30, including 1,804 names (teachers) along with roll numbers and serial numbers.

This publication ensures those listed cannot appear in the fresh recruitment exams scheduled for September 7 and 14, 2025.

On April 3, the Supreme Court cancelled appointments of nearly 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staff by the SSC upholding the Calcutta High Court's order.

The top court passed the order after the SSC failed to provide two separate lists of deserving and undeserving candidates after the government faced corruption allegations in the recruitment process.

A top court bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said the selection process was "vitiated and tainted by fraud".

In April 2024, the Calcutta High Court had cancelled recruitment of nearly 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff in government-sponsored and government-aided schools, dismissing the entire 2016 teacher recruitment panel.

The panel was constituted by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC).

Erstwhile state education minister Partha Chatterjee, former primary education board president and Trinamool MLA Manik Bhattacharya, youth leader Kuntal Ghosh are among the people who were arrested so far in connection with the scam.

Former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Ganguly, who is now contesting the Lok Sabha elections on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket, had ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged irregularities in the recruitment process.