The school service commission (SSC) has rejected the candidature of 16 job seekers — 14 at the secondary
level and two at the higher secondary level — after it was found that their names feature either on the list of “tainted appointees” or candidates with “mismatched OMR marks”.

The commission posted a notice on March 13, rejecting their candidature.

An SSC official said that 14 tainted candidates were identified before the document verification process for the secondary level, scheduled to start on March 23.

Two candidates at the HS level have been rejected just before they were about to be called for counselling.

The commission has said: “It has come to the notice of the commission that names of following candidates of the 2nd SLST (State Level Selection Test) 2025 AT (Assistant Teacher), feature either in the list of tainted appointees (both teaching and non-teaching sector of the 2016 selection process) uploaded on the commission’s website from time to time or in the list of candidates with mismatched OMR marks in the CBI list (though not appointed) also uploaded on the website.”

“Candidatures of these candidates are being cancelled herewith. They shall not be permitted to take any further part in the 2025 selection process (both teaching and non-teaching sector),” the notice says.

The commission has uploaded the names, subjects, reasons for rejection, and roll numbers of candidates rejected in last year’s selection test and the 2016 test.

“These 14 tainted candidates still took the teacher selection tests. Our system tracked them down and revoked their candidature,”
SSC chairperson Siddhartha Majumdar said on Monday.

Of the 14 candidates at the secondary level, 10 have been identified as tainted in the 1st SLST for assistant teacher posts held in 2016.

The remaining 4 have been rejected because they were identified as tainted in the 3rd RLST (Regional Level Selection Test held in 2016 to screen candidates for the appointment of non-teaching staff.

The commission published a list of 1,809 tainted teaching candidates, preventing them from taking the exams last year for teaching posts
in the secondary and higher secondary levels.

The two candidates at the higher secondary level
have been rejected because they were identified as “tainted appointees” with OMR mismatch in the CBI list.

This means the OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) sheets of these candidates were tampered with, suggesting their scores may have been fraudulently inflated.

Metro reported on January 31 that the commission had cancelled the candidature of two other “tainted” candidates who had managed to slip through multiple layers of scrutiny and had even appeared for interviews to qualify as higher secondary teachers.

Those two allegedly misspelt or altered personal details in their applications to evade the screening mechanism.

The two whose candidature was rejected at the Plus-II level on March 13 also appear to have misspelt or altered personal details in their applications to evade the screening, said an education department official.

The counselling is on to appoint 12,514 teachers at the higher secondary level.

Document verification and interviews will be held at the secondary level to shortlist candidates for the appointment of 23,314 teachers for Classes IX and X.

The fresh selection process had to be held after
the Supreme Court in April last year terminated the jobs of 17,209 teachers at the secondary and higher secondary levels because they had
been recruited through a “vitiated” process in 2016 by the SSC.

The court later clarified that 15,403 of them were “untainted” — elevating them from the category of candidates “not specifically found to be tainted” — and allowed them to continue drawing salaries until reinstatement. However, the court directed that even these untainted teachers would have to clear a fresh recruitment process to retain their jobs.

The commission’s March 13 notice states: “It is clarified that if any tainted candidate from the 1st SLST, 2016, and 3rd RLST remains in the system, they will be rejected through multiple layers of verification at the post-examinations stage.”

“Moreover, information about any tainted candidate slipping through the net, even if detected during or after counselling, may be communicated to our Ld. Advocate on Record for necessary action on the commission’s part,” the notice says.