Kolkata, May 13 (IANS) The Education Department of West Bengal has issued communications to all District Magistrates, instructing them to compile lists of “identified tainted” candidates within their respective districts who obtained teaching and non-teaching positions in various state-run schools in exchange for cash.

Sources in the department said that besides preparing the lists of such “identified tainted” candidates, the District Magistrates (DM) have also been asked by the department to draw up a calculation of the amount these candidates will have to pay back to the state government as salaries they received during their service periods and the interest accrued on it.

The “identified tainted” candidates are those who paid cash and secured school jobs after submitting blank or incomplete answer-sheets in recruitment examinations, or through rank jumps or out-of-panel enrolments.

“First, the Calcutta High Court in 2024 and subsequently the Supreme Court in 2025 cancelled West Bengal School Service Commission’s entire panel of around 26,000 school jobs, teaching and non-teaching, because of gross irregularities in the recruitment process. While passing the verdict, both the Calcutta High Court and the apex court directed the recovery of salaries paid to ‘identified tainted’ candidates along with interest. The recovery work was pending for a long time. Now the state education department has initiated that recovery work following instructions from the highest authorities of the state administration,” said an officer of the education department.

In the communications directed to the District Magistrates, it has been mentioned that the Supreme Court mandated on April 3, 2025, that the ineligible teachers, who secured employment in exchange for money in the 2016 WBSSC panel, must return their salaries.

Due to the previous neglect of this issue, the state government has decided to implement the apex court’s order now and expedite the process as soon as possible.

A few years ago, when the list of ineligible teachers was released to the public, it was observed that it included the names of numerous relatives and close associates of the leaders of the Trinamool Congress

In 2015, the Supreme Court had ordered the cancellation of the 2016 recruitment panel of WBSSC, following which 25,735 people lost their jobs. Of these, 18,418 were teaching staff, while the rest were non-teaching staff.

–IANS

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