Kolkata: Virtually a 12 months after the Supreme Court docket directed restoration of salaries paid to candidates who had confirmed to be ‘tainted’ within the cash-for-school job case, the West Bengal Faculty Service Fee (WBSSC) has lastly began initiating the method. 

The Fee had already despatched district-wise lists of confirmed tainted candidates to the District Magistrates involved. The district Inspectors of Colleges would now begin the method of restoration by serving notices to the contaminated candidates, intimating the quantity they should return now.

The cost will embody the principal quantity of the salaries they acquired throughout their years of service, in addition to the curiosity accrued, which was clearly directed first by a Division Bench of the Calcutta Excessive Court docket in 2024 and subsequently by a Division Bench of the apex court docket final 12 months.

The Mamata Banerjee-led Bengal authorities had considerably delayed the method of starting the restoration of wage quantities and pursuits from the contaminated candidates.

Even the Bengal authorities had been reprimanded by the Supreme Court docket for delay in initiating the restoration course of, with the apex court docket asking the state authorities counsel to make clear the delay on this depend.

The apex court docket fastened an rate of interest of 12 per cent on the principal quantity of salaries that such tainted candidates acquired as salaries throughout their service durations.

Sources from the state training division mentioned that the restoration can be made beneath the provisions of the Bengal Public Calls for Restoration Act, 1913. Below the provisions of the Act, if any tainted candidate refuses to pay or expresses an incapacity to pay the quantity, the identical might be recovered by way of confiscation and auctioning of the property registered in his or her identify.

Sources from the state training division mentioned that on common every tainted candidate should pay an quantity ranging between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 25 lakh, relying on their service interval and their wage scales.