Future uncertain for Bengal’s ‘sacked’ teachers as Supreme Court confirms cancellation of over 23,000 appointments

Supreme Court upholds Calcutta High Court's order cancelling 23,000 teaching appointments in West Bengal, leaving teachers uncertain.

A pall of gloom descended on teachers gathered at Shahid Minar grounds in Central Kolkata on Thursday (April 4, 2025) after the Supreme Court upheld the Calcutta High Court’s 2024 order cancelling over 23,000 teaching and non-teaching appointments in West Bengal’s State-run and aided schools.

A little over a year back, hundreds of teachers had gathered to protest at the same place in similarly hot and humid weather when, on April 22, 2024, the Calcutta High Court had ordered the invalidation of the 2016 recruitment panel by the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC), comprising 23,123 teaching and non-teaching appointees.

The Supreme Court, on May 7 last year, had stayed the High Court order, stating that it would be unfair to set aside all appointments if tainted and untainted appointees could be segregated. But on Thursday (April 3, 3035), a Bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar upheld the High Court’s finding that the 2016 selection process was plagued by widespread fraud, and the futures of nearly 24,000 teachers were left uncertain once again.

“There are 600 to 650 examination answer scripts from school that I have been tasked to grade. They are lying at home. I do not know if I will be allowed to check those answer scripts anymore,” said 35-year-old Sahana Naznin, who has been teaching at Baruipur Girls’ High School for the last six years.

Ms. Naznin claimed to be one of the many “untainted” teachers appointed in the 2016 panel, whose jobs were “unfairly rendered null and void” today.

“I think none of us had come here today expecting this outcome. Most of us are in our mid to late 30s. So many of us have families to feed and children to raise and support. Everything just slipped out of our hands in the blink of an eye. The untainted candidates did not deserve this,” she told The Hindu.

Ms. Naznin was surrounded by almost a hundred of her fellow teachers recruited in 2016 for government-run and aided schools across West Bengal. They had gathered at Shahid Minar in the sweltering heat on Thursday (April 3, 2025) morning to follow the Supreme Court proceedings together.