The Calcutta High Court on Friday struck down the appointments of 36,000 primary school teachers in West Bengal who had cleared the Teacher Eligibility Test in 2014 and were recruited two years later, reported The Indian Express.

Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay passed the order while hearing a bunch of petitions alleging irregularities in the recruitment process. Trinamool Congress leader and former minister Partha Chatterjee, his aide Arpita Mukherjee and Manik Bhattacharya, who was the chairperson of Board of Primary Education in 2016, have been arrested in connection with the alleged scam.

There were 42,500 candidates who had been recruited as primary school teachers in 2016.

On Friday, Gangopadhyay cancelled the recruitment on the grounds that the teachers lacked the necessary training that was mandatory in the Teachers Eligibility Test in 2014, reported The Telegraph.

He added that manipulations are also likely to have taken place for appointing untrained candidates by assigning them fictitious marks in aptitude tests that were allegedly never held.

In order to avert a possible crisis by sudden vacancies in schools, the High Court granted four-month extension to the disqualified teachers. It also directed the West Bengal Board of Primary Education to conduct a fresh recruitment exercise within three months for the disqualified teachers.

The court said that during that exercise, “both interview and aptitude test of all examinees shall be taken and the whole interview process has to be videographed carefully and preserved”.

It added, “No new candidate shall be allowed to take part in the recruitment test.”

The High Court had cancelled 1,911 appointments in February and 842 in March but this is the largest number of appointments struck down in one go.

After the court passed the order, Primary Education Board chairperson Goutam Paul said he was consulting legal experts about the case.

“As per directions of the High Court, we had submitted the affidavit and all documents regarding interviews and aptitude tests,” he said. “We will challenge this order before an appellate court or division bench of the High Court; all that will be decided after consulting with legal experts.”

Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party state chief Sukanta Majumder called the government corrupt and asked it take responsibility for the alleged scam.

“How much corruption took place, one can only imagine – 36,000 candidates got a job without proper interview, proper aptitude test and proper qualification,” Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Shatarup Ghosh added.

Notably, the Supreme Court had last month replaced Justice Gangopadhyay in a separate case he was hearing about the alleged irregularities in the recruitment of primary teachers. The court had passed the order in view of an interview that Gangopadhyay had given to the news channel ABP Ananda in September where he had spoken about the case.

Trinamool Congress National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee had told the court that Gangopadhyay had expressed his dislike for him in the interview.