West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday emphasised that the State government is keen to provide employment to the aspirants who have appeared in the School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment process but court cases have prevented the government from doing so.
Accusing “some people” of trying to politicise the issue of irregularities in the SSC recruitment process, she said, “But some people want to politicise the matter and are filing PILs ( public interest litigation) to stop the process. If you file cases, the process will take time. I want to generate jobs, but some people are obstructing and filing PILs,” she said. The Chief Minister was referring to the cases pending before the Calcutta High Court in the SSC recruitment scam.
Ms. Banerjee made the remarks while participating in a Teachers’ Day programme in Kolkata.
Criticising the former Left Front government led by the CPI(M), she said that no documents have been found for the recruitment carried out during their term. “We are not getting a single document from the CPI(M) regime.. In our regime since there are papers people are being able to find fault,” she said.
Responding to allegations raised by the CM, CPI(M) leader and senior advocate Bikash Bhattacharya said that he has not allowed and will not allow the sale of jobs of teachers in return for money.
ED arrests middleman
Even as the State government and the ruling Trinamool Congress are grappling with the irregularities in the recruitment process carried out by SSC, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday arrested a middleman in connection with scam.
Subrata Malakar was arrested from Sodepur after six hours of examination by the agency. The ED has been probing the recruitment scam since the arrest of former Minister Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee from whose residence cash to the tune of more than ₹50 crore was found in July this year.
The Central Bureau of Investigation is also probing irregularities in the SSC recruitment scam as per directions of the Calcutta High Court and it has also arrested a few officials of SSC and middlemen.
