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By Suryagni Roy, Munish Chandra Pandey: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) searched six places, including a residence of a TMC MLA in West Bengal, in connection with the teachers’ recruitment scam.
The action by the probe agency came after a case registered by it in compliance with the Calcutta High Court’s order.
The CBI searched premises in Kolkata, Purba Medinapur and Birbhum district belonging to a chairperson of a trust having colleges in Birbhum and Kolkata.
The premises of another person at Purba Medinipur was also searched, from where several incriminating materials were recovered.
According to the source, the said persons had acted as middlemen between other accused and aspiring candidates in collecting money from candidates by promising them jobs as primary teachers in 2016.
As per CBI sources, the searches started yesterday at the residence of an MLA from the Burwan constituency, Jiban Krishna Saha.
The sources said that during the searches, five bags of documents were recovered from bushes adjacent to the boundary wall of his residence. The alleged documents with photographs of aspiring candidates who had submitted bribe money were recovered.
It was alleged that the bribe collected from the candidates were estimated to be multiple crores.
WHAT IS BENGAL TEACHERS’ RECRUITMENT SCAM?
The CBI was directed to probe the appointment of non-teaching staff (Group C and D) and teaching staff by the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) and West Bengal Board of Secondary Education between 2014 and 2021. The appointees allegedly paid bribes in the range of Rs 5 lakh to Rs 15 lakh to get jobs after failing the selection tests.
As per the CBI, more than Rs 100 crore was allegedly raised by TMC leaders from job aspirants to employ them as teachers and staff at state-run schools across West Bengal between 2014 and 2021.
Last year, former state education minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested in the School Service Commission recruitment for classes IX-XII, bringing the Mamata Banerjee government under attack from the Opposition.
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