SSC Releases List of 3,500 "Tainted" Non-Teaching Staff After Supreme Court Order

The West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) on Monday night released a list of around 3,500 “tainted” non-teaching staff in state-run and state-aided schools, who are among the approximately 26,000 individuals whose appointments were annulled following a Supreme Court order in April, a senior official said.

On April 3, the apex court cancelled the appointments of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff, describing the entire 2016 recruitment process as “vitiated and tainted”. “Tainted” individuals are those whose involvement in the recruitment scam has been proven.

Earlier, the SSC had published lists of over 15,000 “tainted” teachers as directed by the Supreme Court. The commission has now officially released the list of “tainted” non-teaching employees.

Among the 3,512 “tainted” non-teaching staff appointed to assist in classes 9–10 and 11–12, 2,349 belonged to the Group D category, while 1,163 worked as Group C following the 2016 SSC recruitment panel, which was later invalidated by the Supreme Court.

The “tainted” individuals will be barred from participating in the fresh recruitment process. The SSC has begun new tests to recruit teachers and non-teaching employees. "The application for fresh recruitment (of non-teaching staff) tests began on November 3 and will continue for a month," the official said. The commission aims to fill 2,989 Group C and 5,488 Group D positions in this phase.

At least 50 applications had been received by Monday midnight, the official added.

Since the 2016 recruitment panels for Group C and Group D staff have already been nullified, there is no legal impediment to conducting fresh recruitment tests for non-teaching staff, the official further explained.

The SSC is expected to release, in phases, the results of the recently held teacher recruitment examinations for classes 9–10 and 11–12 during the first and second weeks of November.

(with PTI inputs)