The anatomy of a coverup: A deep-dive into the execution of 2016 West Bengal SSC scam, CBI findings and court verdicts
The West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) case is one of the biggest recruitment scams, carried out under the watch of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government.
The recruitments were made in 2016 for positions of Assistant Teachers for Classes 9-12 and non-teaching staff in Groups C and D. Written examinations, interviews/ personality tests were conducted as part of the initiative to fill the vacancies.
The WBSSC had tasked a company named ‘Nysa Communications’ to scan the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets of the candidates and assess the results, which helped execute the recruitment scam.
Allegations against the West Bengal School Service Commission
From the very onset, the selection process was fraught with a lack of transparency. WBSSC did not upload a common list of candidates with their respective marks (both during the initial and final stages).
No age relaxations were granted during the exams in contravention of existing norms, which kickstarted the saga of writ petitions in court. One Baishakhi Bhattacharyya became the first to file a case against WBSSC in 2016.
By 2021, several discrepancies came to light in the manner in which 25,753 individuals were appointed by the WBSSC for the positions of Assistant Teachers and non-teaching staff. The key allegations included:
- Rank jumping – Candidates ranked lower in the merit list were preferred over those with higher marks.
- Pick and choose method in selecting candidates
- Candidates who were neither in the merit list nor on the waiting list were appointed
- Non-tainted candidates were issued appointment letters but not allowed to join their jobs
Committee unearths the fraud of WBSSC officials
A 4-member committee was formed to verify appointments of non-teaching staff under Groups C and D under the chairmanship of retired Justice Ranjit Kumar Bag. The committee also comprised WBSSC representatives, the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education and an Advocate.
The committee found glaring discrepancies and accused officials of the Central Commission of criminal conspiracy (IPC Section 120 B), forgery (IPC Sections 465 and 468), cheating (IPC Section 417) and gross dereliction of duty.
It was discovered that the Central Commission changed the rank of candidates, resorted to manipulation and involved illegal procedure in appointments to non-teaching staff under Groups C and D.
The 4-member committee recommended criminal action/ FIR against 5 officials, namely Saumitra Sarkar, Ashok Kumar Saha, Dr. Santi Prasad Sinha, Dr. Kalyanmoy Ganguly, and Samarjit Acharya.
Investigation by the CBI
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) found that ‘Nysa Communications’ was selected by WBSSC through a closed-door tender process, thereby flouting existing rules.
‘Nysa Communications’ hired another agency by the name of ‘Data Scantech’ without written permission from WBSSC.
After the scanning of OMR sheets was done, Nysa Communications took the data along with them on hard drives to their Noida Office. The physical copies of the OMR sheets were left at the WBSSC office.
During the investigation process, the CBI had seized the server database of the WBSSC pertaining to the 2016 recruitment exams.
The central agency recovered 3 hard disks from the residence of an ex-employee of Nysa Communications named Pankaj Bansal in 2022. And thus the recruitment scam became crystal clear.
“That, a similar exercise of matching the data available on the hard disks of Pankaj Bansal with the data seized from the Commission was done during the course of investigation and it was found that there were mismatch between the two, in as much as, the written marks awarded to candidates as available on the server of the commission had been increased
to qualify undeserving candidates. This mismatch establishes that manipulation in marks of written examination in the case of many candidates was resorted to and such candidates were identified,” the CBI said in its report.
The central agency also found emails exchanged by accused WBSSC officials, Nysa Communication employees and other individuals that further exposed manipulation of data of candidates.
It further added, “Investigation revealed that WBCSSC had destroyed the original OMR sheets and the scanned images of original OMR sheets in the year 2019, which again leads to an inference that the same were destroyed to keep the entire scan under wraps.“
The CBI discovered that West Bengal government, led by Mamata Banerjee, further rewarded Niladri Das (an ex-employee of Nysa Communication and executioner of the recruitment scam) with several recruitment projects.
It found manipulation in OMR sheets in the following 4 instances:
- 952 Assistant Teachers for Classes 9 and 10
- 907 Assistant Teachers for Classes 11 and 12,
- 3481 non-teaching staff belonging to Group C
- 2823 non-teaching staff belonging to Group D
The anatomy of a coverup ft. WBSSC
The West Bengal School Service Commission failed to produce the original OMR sheets of the appointed candidates, claiming that they were destroyed.
It had submitted scanned copies of OMR sheets to RTI applicants from 2018 to 2023, but later claimed in court not to have retained them.
WBSSC also made 2,355 more appointments than available vacancies for both Assistant Teachers (Classes 9-12) and non-teaching staff in Groups C and D. It later sought permission to create ‘supernumerary posts’ to accommodate the illegal appointees.
As per the findings, WBSSC appointed individuals who submitted blank OMR sheets and had secured low ranks. It continued appointing candidates illegally beyond the expiry of the recruitment panel.
The West Bengal School Service Commission violated existing rules by destroying physical OMR sheets for non-teaching staff (Groups C and D) in 2019.
WBSSC had admitted the following in multiple court affidavits:
- Rank jumping
- Out-of-panel appointments
- Appointment of candidates not recommended by it
- Manipulation of the OMR scores.
It has further acknowledged the following data:
- Illegal appointment of 1,498 out-of-panel candidates
- Involvement of 926 candidates in rank jumping
- Recommendation of 4091 candidates despite OMR mismatch
- Involvement of 239 candidates in both OMR mismatch and other illegalities
This puts the total number of illegal appointments at 6,276. However, there is no guarantee that it is an exhaustive list given that WBSSC destroyed the physical copies of OMR sheets and did not retain the scanned copies.
Verdict by the Calcutta High Court
In April 2024, a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court set aside 25,752 recruitments made by the West Bengal School Service Commission in 2016. Only one candidate named Soma Das (cancer survivor), was allowed to retain her job.
The court held that the appointments violated Articles 14 (equality before the law) and 16 (equality of opportunity in matters of public employment) of the Indian Constitution and thus declared it null and void in its entirety.
The Calcutta High Court directed tainted candidates to return the salaries and benefits to the State government with 12% interest within 4 weeks. It further asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the matter.
Moreover, the court directed the WBSSC to undertake a fresh recruitment process.
Verdict by the Supreme Court of India
In May 2024, the Supreme Court of India stayed the order of the Calcutta High Court, wherein it directed the cancellation of 25,752 appointments. It, however refused to put a stay on the CBI investigation in the case.
“The public job is so scarce….Nothing remains if the faith of the public goes. This is systemic fraud. Public jobs are extremely scarce today and are looked at for social mobility. What remains in the system if their appointments are also maligned? People will lose faith, how do you countenance this?” the apex court noted.
“Either you have the data or you do not have it…You were duty-bound to maintain the documents in digitised form. Now, it is obvious that there is no data. You are unaware of the fact that your service provider has engaged another agency. You had to maintain supervisory control,” it further added.
On 3rd April 2025, the Supreme Court of India upheld [pdf] the verdict of the Calcutta High Court and noted systemic irregularities, malaise/ fraud in the 2016 WBSSC recruitment case. Due to a compromise in the overall integrity of the recruitment process, it was cancelled in its entirety.
“In our opinion, this is a case wherein the entire selection process has been vitiated and tainted beyond resolution. Manipulations and frauds on a large scale, coupled with the attempted cover-up, have dented the selection process beyond repair and partial redemption. The credibility and legitimacy of the selection are denuded,” the apex court observed.
The WBSSC had argued that the entire recruitment process should not be annulled. The Supreme Court, however found no merit in the argument.
“We may have accepted this argument if WBSSC had the original physical OMR sheets or the mirror copy of the OMR sheets. However, WBSSC accepts that they do not have the physical OMR sheets as they were destroyed in terms of
Rule 21 of the Class IX and X and Class XI and XII Rules, which require retention of the OMR sheets for only one year,” it added.
The apex court further pointed out that there was no rationale behind destroying the OMR sheets for Group C and D employees, given that the recruitment was underway even after the validity of the recruitment panel had expired.
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