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Calcutta High Court Upholds Exclusion of Tainted Candidates From WBSSC Hiring

A division bench rejected the state’s double-punishment plea against barring tainted candidates, allowing recruitment for more than 44,000 school staff to proceed without disqualified applicants.

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The West Bengal government and the WBSSC had filed a petition before the division bench of Justices Soumen Sen and Smita Das De on Tuesday (Samir Jana/HT Photo)
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Overview

  • On July 10, a division bench of Justices Soumen Sen and Smita Das De upheld Justice Saugata Bhattacharya’s July 7 order to debar candidates identified as tainted by the Supreme Court from the fresh selection process.
  • The bench dismissed the West Bengal government and WBSSC’s contention that excluding those applicants would violate Article 20(2) protections against double punishment.
  • The recruitment drive for over 44,000 teaching and non-teaching posts, launched under a May 30 notification, continues with applications that opened June 16 and close July 14.
  • Of the 1,801 candidates labeled tainted in the 2016 scam, only 188 had applied for the new recruitment out of approximately 260,000 total applicants.
  • The ruling reinforces the Supreme Court’s April decision to annul 25,753 appointments over corruption and bars implicated individuals from rejoining the school service commission.