Key Points

The first round of the written examination for fresh recruitment was conducted on Sunday to fill the vacant posts arising from the termination of 25,753 teaching jobs in the state by the Supreme Court earlier this year.

The second and last round of the written examination will be conducted on September 14. Written examinations are conducted for the recruitment of both secondary and higher secondary teachers.

Shortly after the written examination was over at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Basu issued a social media statement claiming that 3.5 lakh candidates appeared across 636 centres for the assistant teacher recruitment examination (Classes 9–10), which was conducted successfully.

“My sincere congratulations to all candidates, WBSSC, the School Education Department, and all officials involved. The entire administration also looks forward to extending all possible support to ensure that next Sunday's examination for recruiting Assistant Teachers for Classes 11–12 is to be conducted with utmost security, clarity, and transparency,” Basu added.

However, CPI-M Rajya Sabha member and senior advocate. Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said after the examination that the threat of legal challenge still looms on the fresh recruitment process in case a single “tainted” or "ineligible” candidate is found to have appeared for the examination at a later stage.

“The list of ‘tainted’ candidates published by WBSSC last week appears to be highly truncated, and there is a high possibility that more names of ‘tainted' candidates will surface in the coming days, many of whom might have appeared for the written examination. In that case, the examination might be legally challenged and also get cancelled,” Bhattacharya said.

Both Supreme Court and Calcutta High Court have taken a strong stand against the appearance of the “tainted” candidates, identified as paying cash for jobs.

Recently, a group of “tainted “candidates, whose names appeared in the WBSSC list published last week, approached the Calcutta High Court for permission to appear for the written examination for the fresh recruitment process.

However, first a single-judge bench and then a division bench of the Calcutta High Court dismissed their petitions.

- IANS