West Bengal teacher recruitment: No counselling before merit list published

Kolkata, July 13: The Calcutta High Court directed the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) not to proceed with the counselling of candidates for recruitment as teachers for class XI and XII till a merit list was published.

The SSC had issued a notification on July 6 stating that counselling would commence from July 16, without publishing the merit list of successful candidates, petitioners Biswajit Pal and 22 others claimed.

Hearing the petition filed by the examinees, Justice Shekhar Bobby Saraf directed the SSC not to go ahead with the process before publishing the merit list of successful candidates in the recruitment examination held in December 2016.

The counsel for the SSC could not produce any document to show that it had published the list of successful candidates.

Petitioners' lawyer Ashish Chowdhury told the court that SSC appointment rules stated that candidates could be called for counselling only after publication of the list of successful candidates.

Nearly three lakh candidates had appeared for the December 2016 examination for recruitment of teachers for class XI and XII in state government-run schools across West Bengal.