Setback for WB govt: Supreme Court junks review petition in teachers’ recruitment scam case

New Delhi: In a setback to the West Bengal government, the Supreme Court has dismissed a plea by the state government and other seeking review of its judgment, which upheld a decision invalidating the appointment of 25,753 teachers and other staff in state-run and state-aided schools over there.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Satish Chandra Sharma said the judgment of April 3, 2025 was passed after hearing extensive and exhaustive arguments and upon considering all aspects, factual, and legal.

“The settled legal position obtained on the strength of case law was duly considered in the context of the illegalities in the selection process brought out by the reports of the Justice (Retd.) Bag Committee and the Central Bureau of Investigation along with the admissions made by the West Bengal Central School Service Commission and the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education in their counter affidavits," the bench said in its order on August 5, 2025.

The bench noted that the failure on the part of the West Bengal Central School Service Commission to retain the original physical OMR sheets or at least the mirror copies thereof was a significant factor which weighed with the high court and with this court.

“Further, the cover-up of lapses and illegalities by the authorities made verification and ascertainment more difficult, leading to the inevitable conviction that the entire selection process was compromised owing to such illegalities.

"The entire selection, therefore, had to be invalidated to maintain the sanctity of the process of selection, which should be pristine and free of all such infirmities,” the bench said.

However, the interests of the appointed candidates who were untainted were sought to be protected to the greatest extent possible, as is evident from the concluding paragraphs of the judgment, the bench said.

The bench said no doubt, invalidation of such untainted appointments would lead to heartburn and anguish, which the court was fully conscious of, but protecting the purity of the selection process is paramount and necessarily has to be given the highest priority.

“Last, but not the least, the adverse remarks made against the authorities concerned, who were wholly and solely responsible for this entire imbroglio, adversely affecting the lives of thousands of candidates, untainted and tainted, were fully warranted and justified," the bench said.

The bench said these review petitions which, in effect, seek a re-hearing of the entire matter on merits, therefore, do not deserve to be entertained as all relevant aspects have already been examined and considered comprehensively.

“The applications for listing the review petitions in open court are, accordingly, rejected. The review petitions are dismissed. Other interlocutory applications, if any, shall also stand disposed of,” the bench said.

On April 3, 2025, a bench of then Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said this is a case where the entire selection process is vitiated and tainted beyond resolution, and manipulation and frauds on large scale have tainted the selection process beyond repair.

The CJI, pronouncing the judgment, said, “the credibility and legitimacy of the selection are denuded and accordingly we have made some modification in the directions given by the high court”.

The Calcutta High Court had on April 22, 2024 invalidated the appointment of 25,753 teachers and other staff in state-run and state-aided schools of West Bengal, citing irregularities such as OMR sheet tampering and rank-jumping.