The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday arrested six accused in an ongoing investigation of the West Bengal recruitment scam. The agency has registered cases on the charges of illegal recruitment for Group-D, Group–C and Assistant Teacher positions for Classes 9 to 12 in the State-run and State-sponsored schools of West Bengal.
“It was alleged that the accused were part of the network of money collection from various candidates and facilitating employment to undeserving and unlisted candidates in various schools across the State of West Bengal,” the CBI said in a press statement.
During the day, the CBI had summoned several people for questioning in connection with the scam and arrested six persons. The accused were produced before a city court after the arrest.
‘Delayed arrest’
Those arrested are Subrata Samanta Roy, Koushik Ghosh, Sahid Imam, Sk. Ali Imam, Abdul Khalek and Chandan Mondal. While most of the accused are little known in political circles, the name of Chandan Mondal had surfaced in the past on several occasions.
A few months ago, a former minister in Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet and retired IPS officer, Upendra Nath Biswas, had claimed, first on social media and later in a deposition before the Calcutta High Court, that a certain Chandan Mandal, hailing from his erstwhile Assembly constituency of Bagda, was giving jobs to teachers in exchange for money. Commenting on the arrest of Mr. Mondal, Mr. Biswas said that the arrest came after a significant delay and only after the courts expressed displeasure over the tardy pace of the CBI’s investigation.
‘Disable corruption machinery’
Opposition parties targeted the ruling Trinamool Congress over these arrests. Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretary Md. Salim said that those arrested were only “nuts and bolts”, while what was required was to disable the whole machinery involved in corruption. The CPI(M) leader said that no agency could achieve such a result; only the people could do it.
Leader of Opposition and BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari claimed that Mr. Mondal was one of the primary agents of former Education Minister Partha Chatterjee. Trinamool Congress leader and State Minister Firhad Hakim said that he was not aware of who Chandan Mondal was, but added that the law would take its own course.
The arrest of Mr. Chatterjee and the recovery of large amounts of cash from the premises of his aide in July 2022 blew the lid off the recruitment scam. The Calcutta High Court, however, had been issuing directions for a probe by central agencies even before the former Minister’s arrest. Several officials of the State Education Department and West Bengal School Service Commission are behind bars for their alleged involvement in the scam. Recently, the jobs of nearly 2,500 candidates who got appointments using unfair means were terminated by the Calcutta High Court.
