LoP Suvendu Adhikari asks West Bengal government to reinstate ‘untainted’ teachers’ jobs

Leader of Opposition and Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) MLA Suvendu Adhikari, on Monday (September 1, 2025), wrote to the Chief Secretary of West Bengal Manoj Pant asking the government to reinstate the jobs of the ‘untainted’ teachers after the School Service Commission published an official list of the ‘tainted’ candidates. 

‘Untainted’ teachers welcome move by the LoP who has assured them that if the matter is debated in the Assembly they will support the cause. 

“As the principal Opposition of West Bengal, we request you to submit a proposal to the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India on behalf of the Govt. of West Bengal. The proposal should seek reinstatement of all untainted teachers to their previous positions, excluding the 1806 Tainted Teachers identified by the School Service Commission (SSC),” the letter from Mr. Adhikari to Mr. Pant stated on Monday (September 1, 2025). 

He urged the West Bengal government officials to appeal with the Supreme Court to reinstate the jobs of the 15,803 ‘untainted’ candidates. This has been a constant demand of the protesting teachers since April 3 when the initial Supreme Court order scrapped their jobs. 

“We had approached the opposition leaders about the issue. They have assured us that if the matter comes up in the Assembly the opposition will unanimously support the issue and ask the government to reinstate our jobs,” Chinmoy Mondal, a leader of the teachers protests told The Hindu on Tuesday (September 2, 3035). 

The ‘untainted’ teachers had also filed multiple review petitions with the apex court to reconsider their decision. But all of them were dismissed. 

“Forcing us to reappear for exams 9 years after we were hired is a death sentence for us,” Subhojit Das, a teacher who lost his job after the verdict, said. He also said that they are being “tortured” for no fault of theirs. “We did not take part in any corruption. Our names have appeared in no investigation. Then why are our jobs being taken away? Many of our teachers have lost their lives due to stress during the protests,” Mr. Das, a leader of the Jogyo Shikkhok Shikkhika Adhikar Mancha (JSSAM) said.  

The WBSSC came out with the list of 1806 ‘tainted’ candidates on August 30 and 31 after a Supreme Court Bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Satish Chandra Sharma came down heavily on the commission and directed it to publish the names.  

The court asked the WBSSC to ensure that tainted candidates would not be able to appear for the fresh recruitment process. But as many as 1,400 of the ‘tainted’ candidates had already applied for the re-hiring process. Admit cards were also issued, which now stand cancelled. 

The Supreme Court on April 3, 2025, upheld the Calcutta High Court’s order and annulled the appointment of nearly 26,000 jobs of teaching and non-teaching staff in West Bengal, by calling the 2016 recruitment process fraught with fraud and irregularities. 

The entire panel was cancelled because the West Bengal government and the Commission have failed to segregate “tainted” candidates, whose appointments were made using illegal means, from those “untainted”. 

The new recruitment process exams are scheduled for September 7 and 14.