West Bengal's Education Department has directed all District Magistrates (DMs) across the state to compile lists of "identified tainted" candidates — individuals who secured teaching and non-teaching posts in state-run schools by paying cash — as the government moves to recover salaries paid to them along with accrued interest. The directive marks the first concrete administrative step toward enforcing a Supreme Court order from 3 April 2025 mandating salary recovery from ineligible appointees in the 2016 West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment panel.

What the Directive Covers

According to sources within the department, the DMs have been asked not only to prepare the lists of tainted candidates but also to calculate the total amount each candidate must return — comprising salaries drawn during their service periods and the interest accrued on those amounts. The "identified tainted" category includes candidates who submitted blank or incomplete answer sheets during recruitment examinations, secured positions through rank jumps, or were enrolled outside the approved panel.

Court Orders Behind the Recovery Drive

The recovery effort is rooted in a sequence of judicial interventions spanning two years. The Calcutta High Court in 2024 cancelled the WBSSC's entire panel of approximately 26,000 school jobs — both teaching and non-teaching — citing gross irregularities in the recruitment process. The Supreme Court upheld and reinforced this in 2025, and on 3 April 2025 specifically mandated that ineligible teachers who obtained employment in exchange for money must return their salaries. Both courts had directed salary recovery at the time of their verdicts, but the process had remained pending for an extended period.

"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," an officer of the Education Department said.

Scale of the Cancellation

The Supreme Court's order resulted in 25,735 people losing their jobs — 18,418 of them teaching staff and the remainder non-teaching staff. The cancellation of the 2016 WBSSC panel remains one of the largest single-instance job cancellations in the history of Indian public education recruitment.

Political Dimension

The case carries a significant political dimension. When the list of ineligible teachers was made public, it reportedly included the names of several relatives and close associates of leaders of the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC). The state government, led by the TMC, had faced sustained criticism for the prolonged delay in implementing the court's recovery directive. The current move to expedite the process is being seen as a response to mounting judicial and public pressure.

What Happens Next

Once the DMs submit their district-wise lists and salary calculations, the Education Department is expected to formalise recovery notices to each identified candidate. The state government has indicated it intends to expedite the process, though no specific deadline for completion has been announced. The outcome will be closely watched given the scale of the scam and the number of individuals involved across districts.