New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a batch of review petitions filed by the Bengal government and sacked teachers seeking recall of its April 3 judgment upholding the termination of nearly 25,000 teachers and non-teaching staff recruited by the state in 2016.

The school employees had been retrenched as the court felt the entire selection process had been "vitiated and tainted beyond resolution".

The court on Tuesday also rejected the Bengal government's plea for expunging some of its comments, saying that “adverse remarks made against the authorities concerned, who were wholly and solely responsible for this entire imbroglio, adversely affecting the lives of thousands of candidates, untainted and tainted, were fully warranted and justified”.

Although the review petitions filed by the state and sacked teachers were dismissed on August 5 by a bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Satish Chandra Sharma, the order was put in the public domain only on Tuesday.

The order says: “The judgment dated 3rd April, 2025... was passed after hearing extensive and exhaustive arguments and upon considering all aspects, factual and legal. The settled legal position obtaining on the strength of case law was duly considered in the context of the illegalities in the selection process brought out by the reports of the Justice (Retd.) Bag Committee and the Central Bureau of Investigation along with the admissions made by the West Bengal Central School Service Commission and the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education in their counter affidavits.

"The failure on the part of the West Bengal Central School Service Commission to retain the original physical OMR sheets or at least the mirror copies thereof was a significant factor which weighed with the High Court and with this Court.

"Further, it was noted that the cover-up of lapses and illegalities by the authorities made verification and ascertainment more difficult, leading to the inevitable conviction that the entire selection process was compromised owing to such illegalities.”

The court added: “The entire selection, therefore, had to be invalidated to maintain the sanctity of the process of selection, which should be pristine and free of all such infirmities. However, the interests of the appointed candidates who were untainted were sought to be protected to the greatest extent possible....

"No doubt, invalidation of such untainted appointments would lead to heartburn and anguish, which the Court was fully conscious of, but protecting the purity of the selection process is paramount and necessarily has to be given the highest priority. Last, but not the least, the adverse remarks made against the authorities concerned, who were wholly and solely responsible for this entire imbroglio, adversely affecting the lives of thousands of candidates, untainted and tainted, were fully warranted and justified.

"These review petitions which, in effect, seek a re-hearing of the entire matter on merits, therefore, do not deserve to be entertained as all relevant aspects have already been examined and considered comprehensively.

"The applications for listing the review petitions in open Court are, accordingly, rejected. The review petitions are dismissed. Other interlocutory applications, if any, shall also stand disposed of.”