The recruitment of 15,000 teachers for upper primary schools in Bengal can resume after Calcutta High Court on Friday vacated its stay restraining the school service commission from continuing the process.

Justice Abhjit Ganguly said on Friday that henceforth the aggrieved candidates would have to individually submit their grievances to the commission, online or offline.

He asked the commission to appoint officers, not below the rank of secretary, to consider the pleas of the appellants.

Justice Ganguly gave two weeks to the aggrieved candidates to lodge their grievances and directed the commission to complete the process of considering the appeals within four weeks thereafter.

The whole process will have to be completed within six weeks.

The court said the upper age limit of the candidates would be 45 years.

“I hope and trust (that) the commission would sympathetically consider the case of those who crossed the requisite age limit due to the exorbitant delay in the process of recruitment, which started in 2016," the judge said.

The court had on June 30 issued the interim stay on the recruitment. The stay was extended on July 2 for a week following petitions filed by several candidates, who alleged lack of transparency in drawing up the list of candidates to be called for the interview.

After being prodded by the court, the commission on Thursday uploaded on its website a list of candidates who have qualified for interview and those who have not, with marks against the name of each.

The commission also uploaded a list of over 9,000 candidates who have been rejected for interviews because they failed to upload documents like copies of the training certificate and academic qualifications by the deadline.

“Some of the candidates are alleging that the commission erred in putting their names on the list despite the fact that they had furnished all the documents within the deadline. Once these appeals are filed, the designated officials of the commission, as identified by the court, will have to go through the merit of the appeals within the deadline,” said the official.

An official of the commission said the candidates who had qualified for the interview would be called to face the final screening, which would be of 10 marks.

“After the process is completed, a merit list will be published. The aspirants whose names will figure on the merit list will be called for counselling, where they will be given the option of choosing schools,” he said.

When the case came up for hearing before Justice Ganguly on Friday, state’s advocate general Kishore Datta told the court: “Since electronic process has been adopted in preparing the list, there is little chance of error.”

An official of the commission said the lists of successful and unsuccessful candidates were uploaded after computing aspirants’ scores in the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) of 2016, and the marks allotted for academic qualifications and training (BEd or DLeD).

After hearing the advocate general, Justice Ganguly withdrew the stay order.

On October 3, 2019, Justice Mousumi Bhattacharya had instructed the commission that the merit list would have to be prepared on the basis of how an aspirant had performed in the TET, his or her academic eligibility and BEd or DLeD (diploma in elementary education training).

On July 2, 2021, the court had expressed its displeasure over the way the merit list was prepared, allegedly in violation of an October 2019 order.