The Supreme Court has dismissed five separate applications filed by sacked teachers seeking a direction that they be treated as “not specifically tainted” and allowed to return to school till December.

While two applications were dismissed on Friday in a terse order by Justices Sanjay Kumar and K.V. Viswanathan, the bench had rejected three other applications raising similar pleas on May 21.

“It is a well-reasoned judgment… there is no ground to interfere,” the bench
said, dismissing all the five applications.

While the aggrieved teachers were represented by senior lawyer Mukul Rohatgi, the Bengal government was represented by standing counsel Kunal Miami.

The official order had not been uploaded till late on Friday.

On April 3, the apex court had cancelled en masse the appointments of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching school staff, recruited through the school service commission’s 2016 selection process, saying the entire process had been “vitiated”.

On April 17, the court modified its earlier order and allowed the “not specifically found tainted” teachers to return to school till December 31 and draw salaries.

The state government and the school board had moved applications saying the sudden removal of thousands of teachers would hobble the school education system, hurting the pupils.

They had sought permission to continue with the untainted teachers till a fresh recruitment process had been completed, or till the end of the academic year, whichever came earlier.