West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee swept to power in 2011 on promises of “change, not revenge” and a pledge to be a “symbol of honesty.” Voters, disillusioned with the Left Front’s 34-year rule marked by inertia and arrogance, were eager for a reset.

But the promise of change quickly gave way to a campaign of political retribution. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) systematically dismantled the Left’s presence across the state, targeting the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPM] in both rural bastions and urban centres. The purge was so absolute that, after two decades of TMC dominance, the CPM holds no seats in the state Assembly or Parliament.

As for Banerjee’s carefully cultivated image of personal integrity, the reality has been far less flattering. Her first term was dogged by two major scandals: the Saradha chit-fund collapse and the Narada bribery sting. In both cases, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) implicated senior TMC leaders. Two were arrested and spent months in custody—one of them, Kunal Ghosh, now serves as the party’s chief spokesperson. Attempts to pin the blame on the previous Left regime failed; the CBI found no evidence linking the scams to CPM leadership.

In terms of scale and reach, the School Teachers’ Recruitment Scam has eclipsed every previous financial scandal in West Bengal. In a state where government jobs are both scarce and highly sought-after, thousands of qualified youths from virtually every village and town applied for teaching and non-teaching positions in 2016, as advertised by the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC)—an ostensibly autonomous body. Following a recruitment test, 25,753 appointments were made. Yet, in a move that would later raise serious questions, the SSC refused to disclose the names and marks of successful candidates.

The entire process might have passed unnoticed, buried beneath bureaucratic opacity, had a few aggrieved candidates not suspected discrepancies in their rankings and placements. They demanded transparency, seeking access to the full list of selected candidates. Their requests were stonewalled or met with partial disclosures. Eventually, they approached the Calcutta High Court.

The Court’s intervention forced the SSC to publish the list, which exposed glaring irregularities in both the test results and the appointment letters issued by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education, based on the SSC’s recommendations. One revelation led to another: a web of corruption involving job sales orchestrated through a network of agents closely aligned with the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) came to light.

The initial revelations shocked even the single-judge bench of the High Court. What surfaced was not just administrative mismanagement – it was systemic corruption, deeply embedded and meticulously planned. A Court-appointed committee led by retired High Court judge Justice Bag confirmed these suspicions. The findings were staggering: many of those hired had not even attempted their exam papers, yet secured positions to teach higher secondary students.

The scandal’s gravity led the High Court to transfer the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), under judicial supervision. Despite persistent legal challenges and delays orchestrated by the state and its agencies, a Division Bench of the High Court found the entire recruitment process compromised. Eighteen categories of anomalies were identified, including blatant violations of rules, forged rankings, and illegal appointments.

As the investigation deepened, it became evident that TMC-aligned middlemen had collected massive bribes in exchange for jobs. Some of these agents – now under CBI scrutiny – used their illicit earnings to acquire property and assets.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) joined the probe to trace the money trail. Raids uncovered vast stashes of cash, jewellery, and incriminating documents, including at the residence of an actress closely associated with then-Education Minister Partha Chatterjee. The minister, was also TMC’s General Secretary at the time, was arrested by the CBI and jailed – where he remains.

Predictably, the TMC tried to distance itself, expelling Chatterjee and portraying him as a rogue operator. Yet, he continues to retain his Assembly seat, raising questions about the party’s actual intent. Throughout the trial, the state government’s stance was evasive, marked by repeated attempts to obstruct proceedings with appeals and petitions. Crucial documents, such as OMR sheets, were either withheld or falsely claimed to be destroyed. When asked, the WBSSC asserted that the answer scripts were discarded after the mandatory one-year retention period – a claim later proven only partially true.

In its final ruling, the High Court found it impossible to distinguish between tainted and legitimate appointees and annulled the entire panel of 25,753 recruits, ordering fresh examinations for all except those proven to have engaged in fraud. The WBSSC appealed to the Supreme Court. The apex court upheld the High Court’s order, with minor humanitarian exceptions. The 41-page judgment was unambiguous in its assessment:

“In our opinion, this is a case wherein the entire selection process has been vitiated and tainted beyond resolution… The credibility and legitimacy of the selection are denuded.”

The verdict sparked an emergency meeting of the West Bengal Cabinet. At the subsequent press conference, Mamata Banerjee looked rattled. She lashed out at the judiciary. Though she prefaced her remarks with declarations of respect for the courts, her rhetoric was laced with sarcasm and veiled accusations. She alluded to a political conspiracy and even made cryptic comments about former Chief Justices. Some of her statements bordered on contempt of court.

Rather than respond to the Court’s damning observations, Banerjee claimed the judgment was orchestrated by political opponents. She declared her intention to meet the “untainted” teachers at a rally at Netaji Indoor Stadium, implying – without evidence – that the government already knew who these individuals were.

At the meeting, she reiterated her support for those not implicated in wrongdoing, urging them to resume “voluntary work” – a phrase widely seen as an attempt to bypass the Court’s directive and keep dismissed teachers in classrooms unofficially. She promised legal recourse and announced plans to petition the Supreme Court to review the ruling and allow untainted teachers to remain in service.

This raises fundamental contradictions: if the government can identify untainted candidates, why did it fail to present such a list to the courts over the past three years?

Meanwhile, the WBSSC filed a review petition before the Chief Justice of India, asking that untainted teachers be allowed to continue until the current academic session ends or the new recruitment process concludes. Even more bizarre was Banerjee’s declaration that her government would ask the Supreme Court to identify tainted and untainted candidates—an abdication of responsibility. It is not the judiciary’s role to investigate candidates; that duty lies with the recruiting body itself.

Earlier, a High Court single bench had identified thousands who obtained jobs fraudulently. Had the WBSSC accepted these findings and annulled the tainted appointments, the issue may have been resolved. Instead, the state government took an extraordinary step: it created an equivalent number of supernumerary posts, securing all required approvals. When the Court discovered this attempt to protect fraudulent hires through backdoor legal manoeuvres, it ordered a fresh CBI probe and allowed custodial interrogations.

Panicked, the government rushed to the Supreme Court, which stayed the CBI investigation. The apex court later quashed the probe order, offering temporary relief to the state.

Throughout, the state has resisted any attempt to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate appointments. The destruction – or concealment – of vital evidence by the Commission raises serious questions. It suggests that any genuine probe could unravel the entire web of corruption, possibly implicating senior party members and revealing the full extent of the scam.

Now, the case once again lies before the Supreme Court, in the form of a petition seeking to allow the system to retain the untainted teachers. The government argues that without the 25,753 teachers, the education system will collapse. That may well be true. But if this is the “system,” what does it say about its integrity?

The truth is that the education system in West Bengal has been hollowed out from within – rotten by corruption, negligence, and political interference. Perhaps letting the façade collapse is necessary for a meaningful reform. Only then might the state emerge from its stupor and rebuild an honest and accountable public education system.

Whether the Supreme Court will expose the Commission’s gambit for what it is—a desperate attempt to delay justice—or allow a compromised status quo to continue, remains to be seen.

For now, this remains one of the most sordid, deeply unsettling chapters in West Bengal’s recent history.

16 April 2025