The School Service Commission (SSC) examinations on Sunday saw chaotic scenes at centres across the state with misprints on admit cards and question papers reaching late or at the wrong place.

Over 732,000 candidates took the exams, through which teachers are appointed in government and government-aided schools.

Usually about 400,000 candidates take the test to vie for 17,000 teaching posts. This year, to conform to a right to education act guideline that fixes the minimum teacher-student ratio at 1:30, the vacancy is 55,000.

In Calcutta, question papers reached several centres late, including Jogamaya Devi College and Barisha High School, resulting in delayed start to the exams.

“The tests were to start at 11am but the question papers reached at 3.30pm and they were photocopies of the original. The tests were over at other centres by then. The questions had been leaked, so we refused to sit for the test,” said Sushil Ghosh, 23, a candidate at Raipur Kashiara Uchcha Vidyalaya in Burdwan.

In the same district, the question papers for the exams in the second half did not reach Bhubanmohan Uchcha Vidyalaya. At Malda Women’s College, 25 question papers were delivered for 489 candidates and at Bagnan Adarsha Vidyalaya, 211 candidates did not get question papers.

Bengali (pass) question papers reached English (pass) candidates at Deshbandhu Memorial Boys’ High School in Chinsurah and a printing mistake in admit cards led to students landing up at the wrong school at Mograhat in South 24-Parganas.

At many places, students demonstrated holding up their marksheets and demanded a retest, forcing top officials of district administration to intervene.

“All we can say at the moment is that there will be a re-test in Bengali (pass) and Urdu (pass) at all the centres in the northern region. There will also be re-tests in the eastern region at centres where there were problems but only for candidates who cooperated with the authorities,” said SSC chairman Chittaranjan Mandal in the evening.

The northern region comprises Murshidabad, Malda, Jalpaiguri, North Dinajpur and Siliguri sub-division of Darjeeling district and the eastern region, Hooghly, Birbhum and Burdwan.

Former members of the SSC, owing allegiance to the Left Front, were quick to pounce on the officials who run the show now.

“The failure in holding the exam in a fair way points to lack of teamwork within the commission. The planning was not of the scale befitting such a large recruitment drive. It is unfortunate that SSC candidates were subjected to such harassment,” said Ranajit Basu, who was the SSC chairman before Mandal.

There were unconfirmed reports that the SSC authorities had almost made up their mind to cancel all the tests and announce a new date for them when a prod from the chief minister’s office made them decide that re-examination would be subject and region specific.

“According to the rule, re-examination in any subject has to be for all the students in the region who take that subject. This is because the vacancies are region-specific,” said Mandal.

He did not say whether the chief minister’s office had intervened in the matter.

Former members of the commission also criticised the ruling faction for saying that only candidates who had sat for the teachers’ eligibility test, an evaluation ordered by the Centre from this year, will be eligible for a retest.