Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court cancelled the 2016 job panel for West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) for teachers’ recruitment for classes 9-12 on Monday.

The Calcutta High Court cancelled the panel created by the WBSCC upon finding that the recruitment had taken place illegally as a result of the infamous cash-for-jobs scam.

A division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Shabbar Rashidi has passed the order which is slated to affect nearly 24,000 jobs. These observations came after the bench had ordered the re-evaluation of the OMR sheets from the 2016 recruitment exam in the ongoing proceedings in the cash for jobs multi-tier recruitment scam.

Court ordered those recruited in such a way to immediately surrender the salaries drawn by them to the Jurisdictional Magistrate. It was found during the re-evaluation that the teachers recruited on the panel had been recruited illegally since they had been recruited against blank OMR sheets.

Accordingly, Calcutta High Court cancelled all recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff which took place through the WBSSC exam in 2016.  Calcutta High Court has directed the commission to re-draw the panel by initiating a fresh recruitment process.

The CBI has also been directed to look into the matter and submit its report to the Court.