Middleman collected Rs 72 crore in Bengal school jobs scam: ED tells court

Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday told a special PMLA court in Kolkata that Prasanna Roy, a middleman in the multi-crore cash-for-school jobs case in West Bengal, had collected Rs 72 crore as proceeds of the alleged scam.

The central agency came to this conclusion after tallying the deposits in different bank accounts held by Roy and his family members during the six-year period when the alleged irregularities were at their peak.

The ED has also identified Roy as an influential person, as he is the husband of the niece of former state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee, who has been in jail for over two years now as the accused mastermind of the school jobs case.

The ED also told the court that Roy had developed a network in the state Education Department and its affiliate bodies such as the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) and the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE), which he used to arrange school jobs for ineligible candidates against large sums of money.

Roy was first arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is conducting a parallel probe into the school jobs case. Later, he managed to get conditional bail from the Supreme Court. However, after his release on bail, he was arrested again and this time by the ED.

When the CBI launched the probe against Roy, its officials were surprised by the meteoric rise in his financial fortunes between 2014 and 2020, the period when the alleged teacher recruitment scam flourished.

He started as a small-time house painting contractor and slowly extended his business to other spheres like holiday resorts and even tea gardens in North Bengal.