The Supreme Court on Monday stayed a Calcutta High Court order directing the Central Bureau of Investigation to look into appointments made by the West Bengal School Service Commission to teaching and non-teaching posts in 2016, Live Law reported.

A bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, however, declined to stay a High Court order to cancel over 25,000 appointments made by the commission.

The Supreme Court was hearing petitions filed by the West Bengal government and the state School Service Commission challenging the judgment delivered by the Calcutta High Court on April 22.

Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud asked if it was possible to segregate the untainted appointments from the invalid ones, as the Optical Mark Recognition sheets had been destroyed. In reply, the counsel for the petitioners said that secondary material was available.

The Supreme Court will hear the matter further on May 6.

The Calcutta High Court had declared as null and void the 2016 State Level Selection Test for recruitment in West Bengal government-sponsored and aided schools. It further ordered the cancellation of 25,753 appointments to teaching and non-teaching posts made through it.

The High Court order cancelled the panel created by the West Bengal School Service Commission to make the recruitments in the alleged cash-for-jobs recruitment scam. The petitioners in the case had alleged that jobs were given to candidates in return for money instead of candidates who had qualified in the recruitment process.

The order also cancelled all recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff that took place through the West Bengal Central School Service Commission in 2016. It had also asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe the appointment process and submit a report in three months.

The High Court passed the direction based on the findings of a re-evaluation of the Optical Mark Recognition sheets from the 2016 recruitment exam in the case. The re-evaluation found that the selected teachers had been recruited against blank Optical Mark Recognition sheets.

Also read: Why Calcutta HC struck down 25,000 teachers’ appointments and how it could impact the election