Kolkata, March 6 The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials probing the cash-for-school-job case in West Bengal will now question some influential persons who directly recommended ineligible candidates to the former state education minister Partha Chatterjee.
The CBI now has definite clues about the influential persons directly recommending ineligible candidates who were paying money for school jobs, to the former Trinamool Congress secretary general.
Sources said that the investigating officers have a list of 132 such individuals who made job recommendations at different levels.
However, sources added, the sleuths are shortlisting only those who had direct reach to Partha Chatterjee and hence made the recommendations directly to him.
The shortlisting of the individuals has been done on the basis of their communication with Partha Chatterjee through written recommendations or through WhatsApp and SMS messages.
However, the CBI sleuths are totally tightlipped over the names that have already been shortlisted till the process if completed and summons are issued to them for interrogation.
The investigating officials said that their statements would be extremely crucial to make the case more water-tight against Chatterjee.
The CBI sleuths have also got specific information about Chatterjee personally shortlisting ineligible candidate paying money for school jobs.
This personal shortlisting, sources added, was done more in case of selection of primary teachers than secondary and higher secondary teachers.
Recently, the CBI submitted a report to Calcutta High Court giving details of the candidates who secured appointments even after submitting blank answer sheets in the written examination for recruitment.
In the report, sources added, the central agency sleuths also provided explanation of how the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets used in the written examination were manipulated for such candidates.
Chatterjee, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the school job case in July 2022, has also been identified as the main brain behind the scam in the charge sheet filed by the central agency.
Besides him, his close associate Arpita Mukherjee and his son-in-law are among the other accused individuals, as mentioned in the ED’s charge sheet.
A trust titled Babli Chatterjee Memorial Trust, that has been named after Chatterjee's deceased wife, is also named in the ED charge sheet as an accused entity.
It is alleged that the ill-gotten proceeds were shown as donations to this particular trust and thus diverted.
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