Calcutta High Court Reinstates 32,000 Teachers Amid Recruitment Scam Controversy

Court Overturns Previous Ruling

On Wednesday, the Calcutta High Court reversed a 2023 decision that had annulled the appointments of approximately 32,000 primary school teachers in West Bengal, linked to a purported cash-for-jobs recruitment scandal.

A division bench comprising Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Reetobroto Kumar Mitra nullified the earlier ruling made by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay.

Justice Gangopadhyay is currently serving as a Bharatiya Janata Party MP representing the Tamluk constituency in the state governed by the Trinamool Congress.

The issue first arose in 2014 when 42,500 primary school teachers were hired following the Teachers’ Eligibility Test administered by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education.

Subsequently, several candidates filed a petition in the High Court, alleging irregularities in the hiring process, including claims of cash payments for job placements.

In his previous ruling, Justice Gangopadhyay deemed the appointments of 32,000 teachers invalid for several reasons, such as the lack of an aptitude test and the involvement of an external agency in the Teachers’ Eligibility Test, alongside accusations that board officials were selling jobs.

On Wednesday, Justices Chakraborty and Mitra remarked that the single-judge bench had overstepped by cancelling the appointments solely due to the absence of an aptitude test.

“To annul the entire examination, there must be evidence of systemic malice,” the High Court stated. “That is not present in this case.”

The judges also pointed out that there were no complaints regarding the qualifications of the appointed teachers.

“There is no claim that candidates who paid money received higher scores… a group of unsuccessful candidates should not be allowed to disrupt the entire system, especially when it cannot be ruled out that innocent teachers may face undue stigma,” the bench added. “Employment cannot be terminated based on ongoing criminal investigations.”

The bench began hearing the case in April.

The earlier cancellation of the 32,000 teachers' appointments had been contested before a division bench led by Justice Soumen Sen, who is now the chief justice of the Meghalaya High Court.

However, Justice Sen recused himself from the case, leading to its reassignment to the current bench.

In April, the Supreme Court upheld a separate Calcutta High Court ruling that terminated the appointments of over 25,000 teachers and non-teaching staff by the West Bengal School Service Commission.

This decision was made after the Supreme Court noted that the recruitment process was marred by manipulation and fraud.

The High Court had issued a termination order in 2024 based on findings from a re-evaluation of Optical Mark Recognition sheets from the 2016 recruitment examination, revealing that selected teachers had been hired based on blank sheets.