Calcutta High Court directs ED, CBI to submit list of candidates who got job for cash

Kolkata: Calcutta High Court's single- judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha, on Friday, directed both the CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED) to submit a detailed list of those candidates who got appointments as primary teachers in state- schools of West Bengal after paying cash for it.

Justice Sinha on Friday directed the two central agencies to submit separate reports on this count to her court by August 19.

On Friday, the ED counsel submitted a progress report by the agency in the matter in a sealed envelope to the court. It is learnt that as per the progress report the total fund transaction in the West Bengal school recruitment case has been pegged at Rs 350 crore. ED also informed the court that their sleuths have so far attached property worth Rs 126.70 crore in relation to the school recruitment case.

On Friday, the CBI counsel also submitted a separate report to Justice Sana's bench claiming that the allegations floated by the accused in the scam and the expelled Trinamool Congress youth leader Kendal Ghosh about the pressure of Central agency sleuths on him to name TMC national general secretary in the school recruitment case was totally baseless

"The allegations that Ghosh made in his letters to a judge of a special court in Kolkata as well as to the officer-in- charge of a local police station in the city have no merits at all," the CBI counsel claimed. On this matter, the CBI counsel also accused the authorities of the Presidency Central Correctional Home, where Kuntal Ghosh is housed, of negligence in preserving the CCTV footage within the correctional home premises.

"As per jail manuals, the CCTV footage for 180 days need to be preserved. But in this case, the correctional home authorities could not provide footage for more than seven days," the CBI counsel informed the court.

Thereafter. Justice Sinha questioned the counsels of both the central investigative agencies as to why their officers were taking so much time in reaching the kingpin in the case.