Kolkata, 1 July (H.S.) : The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday raised significant questions over the West Bengal School Service Commission’s (WBSSC) latest recruitment notification. The single-judge bench of Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya pointed out discrepancies in the new rules issued to fill the vacancies created after the Supreme Court canceled 25,753 teaching and non-teaching appointments.

During the hearing, Justice Bhattacharyya questioned why the Commission had introduced a revised weightage criteria in the new notification when the Supreme Court had clearly directed that any fresh recruitment must follow the 2016 guidelines.

The Court also asked why candidates who had previously been marked as ineligible were not barred from applying in the new recruitment process. Referring to the Supreme Court’s April order, Justice Bhattacharyya said the notification should have explicitly stated that disqualified candidates were not permitted to reapply.

The High Court has now sought a detailed explanation from both the West Bengal government and WBSSC on these two key issues.

According to the new notification issued by WBSSC in May, the written examination now carries 60 marks, compared to 55 in the 2016 process. The weightage for academic qualifications has been reduced from 35 to 10 marks. Additionally, two new evaluation components — prior teaching experience and lecture demonstration — have been introduced, each carrying 10 marks.

Legal experts had flagged potential legal complications soon after the revised weightage system was announced, citing concerns over deviation from the Supreme Court’s directives.

The matter is likely to gain further traction as the state awaits the court’s final opinion on the legitimacy of the revised recruitment framework.

Hindusthan Samachar / Satya Prakash Singh