The school service commission (SSC) has cancelled the candidature of two “tainted” candidates who had managed to slip through multiple layers of scrutiny and had even appeared for interviews to qualify as higher secondary teachers.

The two allegedly misspelt or altered personal details in their applications to evade the screening mechanism put in place to bar sacked and tainted candidates from the recruitment process.

The SSC said on Friday that the candidates had been “placed in the merit lists” despite their names featuring in lists of tainted candidates prepared earlier.

“It has come to the notice of the commission that the following two candidates (who feature in the tainted list of candidates as notified by the commission from time to time) have slipped into the selection process in the 2nd SLST, 2025 (AT), and consequently have been placed in the interview list and merit lists,” SSC chairman Siddhartha Majumdar said in a written notice.

He added: “As committed in our earlier notices and in compliance with orders passed by... High Court at Calcutta, their candidature is cancelled, and they are now removed from the selection process.”

The fresh teachers’ recruitment process, which resumed after a decade, has already been under intense scrutiny. Friday’s statement has raised concerns over whether the exercise could face further hurdles.

Behind the lapse

SSC officials explained how the breaches occurred.

In one case, a candidate who was listed as Md Moktar “Hossian” in 2016 submitted his 2025 application as Md Moktar “Hossain”. The SSC had published a list of 3,512 tainted non-teaching candidates in November, which included Md Moktar “Hossian”. The altered spelling allowed him to be treated as a new applicant for a teaching post.

The discrepancy went undetected during earlier stages of scrutiny, including when the candidate appeared for an interview in December. He was subsequently placed on the merit list published by the SSC on January 21, ahead of the counselling process scheduled to begin in February.

The irregularity came to light during physical verification of documents, following which his candidature was cancelled.

The apex court had ruled that no tainted teaching or non-teaching employee should be allowed to participate in the fresh selection process.

The September 14 selection test was conducted to shortlist candidates for higher secondary teacher posts following the apex court’s termination of 17,209 teachers in April.

The second tainted candidate identified by the SSC is Samit Sen, whose name had appeared in the list of 253 tainted waitlisted candidates. Although he did not secure a job earlier, the CBI probe had flagged alleged OMR sheet manipulation in his case.

According to SSC officials, Sen managed to bypass the initial screening by dropping the word “late” before his guardian’s name in the 2025 application. His father’s name had appeared as “Late Kalipada Sen” in the 2016 records.

“We had data on him, but he could not be stopped initially because of the altered details. Once we got an alert, further scanning was done and his name was removed,” an SSC official said.

In a recent affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, the education department said the scanning exercise would continue until the final stage of appointments to ensure that tainted candidates are prevented from securing jobs.