Teachers' recruitment scam: In connection with the teachers' recruitment scam case, the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to initiate a probe against another Trinamool Congress legislator, Tapas Saha, from the Tehatta Assembly constituency. This comes after TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee was summoned by the CBI for questioning on April 18.
Allegations about Saha's involvement in the recruitment scam were made quite some time back and the state police were also conducting a probe in the matter.
Calcutta HC directs CBI to take over probe
However, on Tuesday, after Calcutta High Court's single-judge bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha directed the CBI to take over the investigation with immediate effect. Justice Mantha also directed the state police to handover all documents concerned including the case-diary to the central agency sleuths at the earliest.
The principal allegation against Saha was that he collected cash of Rs 16 crore for illegally arranging jobs in state-run schools to ineligible candidates.
A Public Interest Litigation in the matter was filed at the Calcutta High Court in 2018 by BJP leader and counsel of the same court Tarunjyoti Tiwari. On that PIL, the single-judge bench ordered CBI to initiate a probe against Tapas Saha.
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What did TMC leader Tapas Saha said?
Giving his reactions to the media persons after the order, Tiwari said that there are allegations of Saha's involvement in recruitments in various departments besides that of teaching and non-teaching staff.
"Although the state police are investigating such charges, they never took him to custody and questioned him. The state police could not give any satisfactory answer on why the chargesheet has not been placed even after a year since the investigation started. So, the bench ordered the CBI to initiate a probe against Saha," Tiwari added, as per news agency IANS.
CBI conducts searches at various locations
Earlier on April 14, the CBI conducted searches at six locations in West Bengal’s Birbhum, Murshidabad and Kolkata including the premises of TMC MLA Jiban Krishna Saha in connection with the teachers’ recruitment scam case. The CBI has alleged that Burwan MLA Saha was the main conduit who was allegedly collecting money from the aspirants for the recruitment of teachers for classes 9-10.
The agency had registered the case on the directions of the Calcutta High Court last April. The court had directed a probe into the scam in which the role of the former advisor of West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) S P Sinha is also being looked into. Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay had observed that this matter is required to be investigated by the CBI by registering a new case as it relates to the appointment of assistant teachers in classes 9 and 10.
(With inputs from agencies)
