What happened
In 2016, the West Bengal School Service Commission recruited 26,000 teachers and staff. It later emerged that roughly 6,000 of those positions were sold through a sophisticated corruption network — OMR answer sheets were tampered with, marks were manipulated on the SSC's main server, and fake appointment letters were issued. Former TMC education minister Partha Chatterjee, now accused of orchestrating the cash-for-jobs operation, had ₹50 crore in cash recovered from his associate Arpita Mukherjee's apartments. The Supreme Court's solution was characteristically surgical: cancel everyone. All 26,000 appointments were scrapped, including approximately 19,000 teachers who passed the exam honestly and taught for years without knowing their colleagues had bought their way in. As one dismissed teacher told The Quint: "Being punished for the government's corruption." On April 11, 2026, the ED raided Chatterjee's residence again, just to make sure they hadn't missed any cash. The Supreme Court has generously ordered the WBSSC to conduct fresh recruitment within three months and offered age relaxations — because nothing heals the trauma of losing your job for someone else's crime like being told you can re-apply.