SSC scam: Supreme Court rejects petitions seeking review of order quashing 26,000 jobs in Bengal

The petitions were filed by the West Bengal government, School Service Commission (SSC) and sacked teachers.

A bench comprising Justices PV Sanjay Kumar and Satish Chandra Sharma rejected the petitions stating its April 3 judgement was passed after extensively hearing all arguments and taking all aspects in consideration.

"The entire selection, therefore, had to be invalidated to maintain the sanctity of the process of selection, which should be pristine and free of all such infirmities," the bench said as quoted by Live Law.

The rejection of the review petition means all sacked teaching and non-teaching staff will have to appear for fresh examination as earlier was mandated by the top court that had cancelled the entire 2016 selection panel through its April 3 order.

On April 3, the Supreme Court cancelled appointments of nearly 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staff by the SSC upholding the Calcutta High Court's order.

The top court passed the order after the SSC failed to provide two separate lists of deserving and undeserving candidates after the government faced corruption allegations in the recruitment process.

A top court bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said the selection process was "vitiated and tainted by fraud".

In April 2024, the Calcutta High Court had cancelled recruitment of nearly 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff in government-sponsored and government-aided schools, dismissing the entire 2016 teacher recruitment panel.

The panel was constituted by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC).

Erstwhile state education minister Partha Chatterjee, former primary education board president and Trinamool MLA Manik Bhattacharya, youth leader Kuntal Ghosh are among the people who were arrested so far in connection with the scam.

Former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Ganguly, who is now contesting the Lok Sabha elections on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket, had ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged irregularities in the recruitment process.