The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has questioned the conduct of the Bengal Government in perpetrating the school-level recruitment scam. In a report submitted in the Supreme Court, the Central agency has alleged that the main mastermind of the Teachers’ Eligibility Test (TET) scam was Manik Bhattacharya, the jailed Trinamool Congress MLA and deposed TET chairman. According to the agency, Bhattacharya was given extension in 2016 by a Cabinet decision upping the retirement age of the chairman from 62 to 65.
The CBI has also claimed that Bhattacharya had divided the entire fake recruitment network into district-wise teams responsible for collecting cash for jobs.
Incidentally, almost the entire State education department led by former Education Minister and number two in the Mamata Banerjee Cabinet Partha Chatterjee, are at present in jail. Apart from the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate, too, has unearthed a new modus operandi of another TMC office-bearer Shantanu Banerjee, who is, incidentally, also in jail.
The CBI has also described how 36 people in Coochbehar district got school jobs without taking TET exams. It also revealed that a number of teachers who appeared for Urdu tests were presently working as Bengali teachers.
According to the ED, Banerjee, while working as a member of the Hooghly district board, appointed a large number of daily wagers whose accounts he used to siphon off the ill-gotten cash raised from ineligible candidates seeking teaching jobs.
The ED had earlier told the Calcutta High Court that the mobile phone of Banerjee — known for his proximity to TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee — was a gold mine of information and that the names it contained could not be disclosed in public for the fear of political unrest.
According to the claims made by both the agencies several thousand recruitments might have been made in exchange of cash and the rates of appointment varied between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 20 lakh depending upon the position.
Even as the CBI reports have triggered a fresh turmoil in Bengal politics, State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar on Friday said, "The Chief Minister is the real mastermind... As she had got the Cabinet decision passed increasing the retirement age of Manik Bhattacharya... So you think she was doing it without any interest." CPI (M) State secretary Md Salim said, "A free and fair investigation will reveal that all those thousands of crores of rupees raised from the recruitment scam went to Kalighat."
The Chief Minister resides at Kalighat in South Kolkata. The TMC however has strongly refuted the charges brought by the Opposition parties with Bengal Minister Dr Shashi Panja saying: "Though people are trying to malign the name of our Chief Minister she is absolutely not responsible for the scam ... Let the agencies not play into the hands of the BJP ... let them find out the truth."