New Delhi, Feb 21 The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice on a plea filed by former West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee seeking bail in connection with the alleged multi-crore cash-for-school job scam.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N.K. Singh agreed to examine Chatterjee’s bail plea and sought the response of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the matter.
In December 2024, a single-judge Bench of the Calcutta High Court had denied bail to Chatterjee after a division bench of Justice Arijit Bandopadhya and Justice Apruba Sinha Roy delivered a split judgement on the question of grant of bail to him and eight other co-accused.
While Justice Bandopadhya pronounced in favour of bail for Chatterjee and eight other accused in the case, Justice Sinha Roy rejected the same for Chatterjee and four others.
Thereafter, the Calcutta High Court Chief Justice allotted the case to the single-judge bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty.
Recently, the CBI officials have got additional clues about the role of Chatterjee, also the former Trinamool Congress Secretary General, in personally shortlisting the candidates recommended by high-profile individuals for selection. The CBI sleuths have procured from the state Education Department headquarters at Salt Lake, a list of 324 candidates whose names were recommended by some high-profile individuals in the state, including some present and former MPs and MLAs of the ruling Trinamool.
Further probe on the list revealed that the same was forwarded to Chatterjee, who personally shortlisted names for selection and directed his subordinates to act accordingly. In addition to that, some hand-written notes on the copy of the list have further established the role of Chatterjee in shortlisting the recommended candidates for selection, said a source aware of the development.
Chatterjee was initially arrested in July 2022 by the officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) which is conducting a parallel probe into the school job case. Later, the CBI also showed him as arrested.
Chatterjee is currently under treatment at a private hospital in Kolkata following a reported deterioration in his medical condition. The authorities of the said hospital have recently informed a special court in Kolkata that the former minister is almost cured and will be released soon. The Supreme Court had already granted conditional bail to Chatterjee in the ED-registered case.
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