New Delhi, July 17 A Supreme Court judge on Thursday recused himself from hearing a plea filed by former West Bengal Education Minister and ex-Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee seeking bail in connection with the multi-crore cash-for-school job case.
After Justice Joymala Bagchi withdrew himself from hearing, the bench headed by Justice Surya Kant referred the file to the Chief Justice of India (CJI), who is the master of the roster, for listing the bail petition before a different bench.
Earlier, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh had issued notice on Chatterjee’s bail plea and sought the response of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the matter.
In an order passed on May 8, the apex court directed the West Bengal government to decide on granting prosecution sanction within two weeks so that the trial proceedings against Chatterjee and other state government employees accused in the school job cases registered by the Central anti-corruption probe agency can be set in motion.
The CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had been conducting parallel probes in the school job cases.
Both the ED and CBI, in their charge sheets, have arrayed Chatterjee as the principal mastermind in the alleged cash-for-school job scam.
Chatterjee was first arrested by the ED from his residence in South Kolkata in July 2022, and since then, he has been behind bars.
Later, the CBI also showed him as arrested.
In April this year, the Supreme Court upheld the order of the Calcutta High Court, cancelling 25,753 teaching (secondary and higher secondary) and non-teaching jobs in state-run schools for the West Bengal School Service Commission's (WBSSC) entire panel for 2016.
It accepted the contention that the entire panel had to be cancelled because of the failure on the part of the state government and the commission to segregate the "genuine" candidates from the "tainted" ones.
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