The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday asked the West Bengal government why candidates accused of wrongdoing in an alleged cash-for-jobs teacher recruitment scam were being allowed to apply again, Live Law reported.

West Bengal’s school education department published a gazette notification on May 30 regarding the fresh appointment of assistant teachers in upper primary, secondary and higher secondary classes in government-run and government-aided schools, The Hindu reported.

Justice Saugata Bhattacharya on Tuesday asked the government why there was “no express bar to debar the tainted candidates from applying” in the notification.

“This is troubling me…the Supreme Court has said tainted candidates will not be permitted; where is such indication in [state’s] notification...let the issue be sorted by filing a clarification before the SC,” the judge said, according to Live Law.

The counsel for the state government urged the court not to make any remarks on record, and claimed that the fresh appointments were being carried out in line with the Supreme Court’s directions. The state government sought time to clarify the matter, after which the court adjourned the case to a later date.

On April 3, the Supreme Court upheld the Calcutta High Court’s April 2024 order terminating the appointment of about 25,000 teachers and non-teaching staff by West Bengal’s School Service Commission. The bench passed the order after observing that the recruitment process was “vitiated by manipulation and fraud”.

The top court on April 17 permitted “untainted” teachers to be retained until the end of the academic year or until fresh appointments are made, whichever is earlier. However, it did not grant relief to Group C and Group D employees, or non-teaching staff, whose appointments were also cancelled.

In April 2024, the High Court issued its direction on the termination of the appointments based on the findings of a re-evaluation of the Optical Mark Recognition sheets from the 2016 recruitment examination in the case.

The re-evaluation found that the selected teachers had been recruited against blank Optical Mark Recognition sheets.

Also read: How a hiring scam and a court order drove thousands of Bengal’s teachers into joblessness