Bengal school-job-case: CBI submits compliance report at Calcutta HC

Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday submitted a compliance report on its investigation in the cash-for-school-job case in special division bench of the Calcutta High Court.

The compliance report was submitted at the special bench of Justice Debangshu and Justice Shabbar Rashidi just a day after the CBI sleuths submitted a fresh supplementary charge sheet at a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata.

In that fresh charge sheet, the CBI has held the former West Bengal education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee as being directly involved in all the four cases registered by the agency on irregularities in recruitment of secondary and higher secondary teachers as well as non-teaching staff in Group-C and Group-D categories done by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC).

On Tuesday, the CBI counsel also apprised the special bench of the Calcutta High Court about the fresh supplementary charge sheet filed a day before. The next hearing in the matter will be on January 15.

The submission of the fresh charge sheet on Monday and that of the compliance report on Tuesday is significant given the Supreme Court fixing a specific deadline for the central agency to wind up the investigation process in the school job case.

Sources said that besides Chatterjee, a number of former officials of the state Education Department have been mentioned in the fresh supplementary charge sheet, including three persons now named as “accused”, while earlier being shown as “witnesses” in the case.

Sources also said that the fresh supplementary charge sheet has been drafted in such a way so that the avenues for further and continuing investigation by the central agency in the matter remain open.