Calcutta High Court Restores Jobs of 32,000 Primary Teachers, Sets Aside Cancellation Order

The Calcutta High Court has set aside an earlier order that cancelled the jobs of 32,000 primary teachers linked to the West Bengal school recruitment scam. The division bench said the evidence did not show irregularities in every appointment and warned that mass termination after nine years would severely affect thousands of families.

The teachers were selected through the 2014 Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET) run by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education. The now-overturned single bench order had scrapped the entire panel following allegations of a cash-for-jobs racket and procedural lapses in the recruitment process.

Calcutta High Court teachers recruitment: division bench reasoning

The bench led by Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty held that it was “not inclined” to support the earlier ruling because wrongdoing had not been proven across all recruitments. The judges noted that blanket cancellation would go beyond the irregular appointments identified during investigations supervised by the court.

Explaining its stance, the bench observed that data did not confirm widespread manipulation of the process. It stated, "There must have been a possibility of systemic malice, assessment of data doesn't point to the same... A group of unsuccessful candidates cannot be allowed to damage the entire system. A job taken away after 9 years of service would cause insurmountable difficulty," according to Live Law.

Calcutta High Court teachers recruitment: findings on irregularities

Under directions from the Calcutta High Court, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) examined appointments made through the 2014 TET cycle. Investigators flagged 264 recruitments as irregular, with another 96 teachers later placed under scrutiny, leading the bench to conclude that cancelling every appointment would not be proportionate.

The single judge had earlier focused on several issues, including the lack of an aptitude test for candidates, the use of an external agency in handling recruitment, and accusations that posts were allegedly sold. Those findings had prompted the sweeping order terminating 32,000 primary teachers before the division bench intervened.

The legal battle began after multiple candidates approached the court alleging large-scale wrongdoing in the 2014 recruitment process. Petitions claimed cash-for-jobs practices and other irregularities in primary school appointments, prompting judicial scrutiny of the role of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education and those involved in the selection exercise.

The controversy reached the division bench after an earlier hearing stalled when a judge recused from the matter. Fresh hearings on the appeals began in April 2025, allowing arguments from both the affected teachers and the candidates who had originally challenged the 2014 selection process.

This order comes in a wider context of court action over West Bengal school appointments. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court upheld a different decision that scrapped more than 25,000 state school jobs from a 2016 recruitment panel handled by the West Bengal School Service Commission, adding further pressure on the education hiring system.