Kolkata, April 5 : In an unprecedented development in the history of judiciary, Calcutta High Court witnessed four-division benches either recusing or declining to hear a batch of appeals in relation to the alleged irregularities in the recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in the sponsored Secondary and Higher Secondary schools under the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE). On Monday three such division benches either recused themselves or declined to hear the set of petitions and on Tuesday. Calcutta High court division bench Justice Joymalya Bagchi recused itself from hearing the SSC issue, the 4th division bench in the past 48 hours, an unprecedented happening in the history of Calcutta High Court, the oldest in the country, which was established in 1861. On Monday Justice Harish Tandon bench was the first to recuse himself from SSC hearing, and then Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Soumen Sen had followed the same. The hearing of the recruitment scam has been in the focus ever since repeated orders for a CBI probe by a single judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay have been either stayed or set aside by a Division Bench comprising Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Rabindranath Samanta. Justice Gangopadhyay on Wednesday had passed an order against the direction issued by the Division Bench to accept an affidavit containing details of the assets possessed by S.P. Sinha, former Advisor of the School Service Commission in a ‘sealed cover’. However, the single bench judge had objected to the division bench order to accept the document In “sealed cover” and expressed displeasure against such an order of the Division Bench. Justice Gangopadhyay had even observed, “I do not know what this court will do with a sealed cover in this proceeding when the hand of this appeal has been tied by the above observation. I have been prevented from taking any consequential step on going through the said affidavit of assets.” He also wrote to the chief justice of India and the chief justice of Calcutta High court on the issue. And then the recusal effect of the division bench came to hear the SSC scam one after another in the past 48 hours. Sources in the judiciary said now the case would return to the chief justice of Calcutta High court, who may ask another division bench to hear the case. Meanwhile, the single bench of Justice Gangopadhyay is scheduled to hear the case as he had directed the CBI to probe the alleged irregularity of the recruitment. In 2016, the State had recommended the appointment of about 13,000 non-teaching staff in different government aided schools and accordingly the WBSSC had conducted examinations and interviews periodically and thereafter a panel had been constituted. The term of the panel ended in 2019. However, subsequently, there were widespread allegations that the Commission had made several irregular recruitments close to almost 500 even after the expiry of the panel. PC SJC ARN