Bengal school job case: Prime accused Sujay Krishna Bhadra granted bail by Calcutta HC

Kolkata, Dec 5 A single-judge Bench of the Calcutta High Court on Friday granted bail to Sujay Krishna Bhadra, one of the prime accused in the multi-crore cash-for-school job case in West Bengal.

Bhadra is the last of the prime accused persons in the school job case to get bail, after the ex-West Bengal education minister and former Trinamool Congress secretary general, Partha Chatterjee was released on bail.

Chatterjee was released on bail last month after spending over three years behind bars since his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in July 2022.

On the other hand, Bhadra, widely known as “Kalighater Kaku (Uncle of Kalighat)", was currently under house arrest after he was granted an interim bail earlier this year on medical grounds.

However, the single-judge Bench of Justice Suvra Ghosh, while granting bail to Bhadra on Friday morning, also imposed certain restrictions that had to be followed.

He will have to submit his passport and also report to the Investigating Officer of the central agency in the case once a week.

He will also have to provide his mobile number to both the Investigating Officer and the court. The single-judge Bench also clearly said that Bhadra should not make any attempt to destroy or tamper with the evidence and documents related to the case.

Justice Ghosh also ruled that in case Bhadra defies any of the restrictions imposed by the court during the bail period, the trial court will have the full authority to cancel his bail.

To recall, Bhadra was first arrested by the ED on May 30, 2023, in connection with the school-job case. Later, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is conducting a parallel probe in the matter, also showed him as arrested.

In April this year, the CBI informed a special court in Kolkata that Bhadra received Rs 75 crore from Arun Hazra, a particular middleman in the school job case.

The money received by Bhadra, according to the CBI counsel, was collected by Hazra from “tainted" candidates who paid to secure school jobs

The CBI counsel also presented a summary of Hazra's modus operandi to the court.

As per the CBI, Hazra, as a middleman, used to operate a chain of sub-agents. Their main task was to identify candidates willing to pay money for school jobs and, accordingly, collect the money from these candidates. Hazra collected amounts for the recruitment in all categories of teaching staff, namely primary, secondary, and higher secondary.

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