West Bengal SSC : Supreme Court Stays Calcutta HC Order Allowing Age Relaxation For Unappointed Candidate Of 2016 Selection Process

The Supreme Court today stayed a Calcutta High Court order which gave the benefit of age relaxation to a candidate who was unsuccessful in the 2016 SSC recruitment process for the post of Assistant Teacher to Classes 9 to 12.A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and K Vinod Chandran passed the order, after hearing Senior Advocate Kalyan Bandhopadhyay (for West Bengal Central School Service Commission).Put briefly, the WBCSSC challenged the High Court's order of last December, whereby the respondent-candidate was allowed to participate in the 2025 selection process with interim benefit of age relaxation.In its petition, it contended that the respondent approached the Courts belatedly, that is, after the High Court passed an order dated December 3 in another case, that all candidates of the 2016 selection process, regardless of their appointment, should be permitted to participate in the 2025 selection process with age relaxation. That case related to non-teaching staff and the petitioners approached the Court without any delay, WBCSSC highlighted. It further mentioned that a petition against the December 3 order is currently pending.The petition further submitted that the High Court's direction was in the teeth of the 2025 Rules and Supreme Court's decision in State of West Bengal v. Baisakhi Bhattacharyya which upheld the High Court decision invalidating nearly 25000 teaching and non-teaching staff appointments made by the West Bengal SSC in 2016. In this case, the Supreme Court granted the benefit of age relaxation to untainted candidates.According to the petitioner, the High Court, in the impugned order, misread the Supreme Court's observations to include all candidates who participated in the 2016 process (whether appointed/selected or not) within the ambit of "who were not found specifically tainted". "The said direction was limited for persons who were appointed and were not found specifically tainted", the plea said.The petitioner cited the case of another waitlisted candidate (in the 1st SLST recruitment process), Arunima Paul, to urge that the fact that only selected untainted candidates were given age relaxation had attained finality. This candidate's petitions were dismissed both by the High Court and the Supreme Court.BackgroundInitially, the entire selection process was set aside by the High Court's Division Bench, on finding egregious irregularities offending Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. This decision was upheld by the Supreme Court and it resulted in cancellation of services of 2 categories of candidates - one category was termed as “tainted” and another “untainted”.While dealing with tainted candidates, the Supreme Court observed that their appointment was a result of fraud, which amount to cheating. As such, the decision of the Division Bench was not interfered. While upholding the decision to cancel the appointments of the untainted candidates due to the entire process being vitiated by fraud, the Supreme Court stated that they were not required to refund their salaries, like the tainted candidates.In a subsequent round of litigation over a fresh recruitment process, although the WBCSSC and State argued that the Supreme Court distinguished between tainted and untainted candidates only to the extent of granting benefit of age relaxation, the High Court noted that on a plain reading of the judgment it could not be construed that tainted candidates were permitted to participate in the selection process. Accordingly, it debarred 'tainted' candidates from participating in the fresh SSC recruitment process.In December, 2025, the High Court permitted a waitlisted/unappointed candidate of the 2016 selection process (for the post of Assistant Teachers for Classes IX-X and XI-XII) to participate in the 2025 selection process with age relaxation as an interim measure. It directed that the candidate's marks in interview and lecture demonstration be kept in sealed cover and if he scored more than the last qualified candidate, his case would be taken up for further consideration.Appearance: Senior Advocate Kalyan Bandhopadhyay and AoR Preetika Dwivedi (for WBCSSC)Case Title: WEST BENGAL CENTRAL SCHOOL SERVICE COMMISSION v. JAKIR HOSSAIN, SLP(C) No. 497/2026

West Bengal SSC : Supreme Court Stays Calcutta HC Order Allowing Age Relaxation For Unappointed Candidate Of 2016 Selection Process

Debby Jain

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