West Bengal: ED sends notices to candidates who 'paid' money to Trinamool legislator for getting job

Kolkata, Sep 2 Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials have sent notices of interrogation to candidates who reportedly paid money to Trinamool Congress legislator Jiban Krishna Saha for getting school jobs in government schools of West Bengal.

Saha, the Trinamool Congress legislator from Burwan Assembly constituency in Murshidabad district, was arrested on August 25 in connection with the school job case.

According to ED sources, Saha took money from 75 people for providing jobs.

Sources said that in the first batch, 20 such candidates have been summoned for interrogation next week at ED's central government office (CGO) complex in Salt Lake, Kolkata.

Already, the name of a middleman in the matter has surfaced.

However, it is to be found how much money the middlemen took and how much Saha received.

The sources said that the candidates paid Rs 7 lakh each, with one particular middleman involved.

The ED counsel had already informed a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata that between 2010 and 2015, a massive amount of Rs 1.2 crore was credited in Saha's account, with the latter being unable to justify the sources of that fund.

Saha is currently in judicial custody.

Earlier, the CBI had arrested Saha in the same matter.

The sources said Saha ensured jobs for some people even after the recruitment panel expired.

His main aide in the matter was the then top official of WBSSC, Santi Prasad Sinha, to whom Saha recommended the names of 75 such ineligible candidates for illegal recruitment.

On August 25, the ED arrested the MLA from his house in West Bengal's Murshidabad district.

The MLA then tried to flee his house by scaling a boundary wall and also threw one of his two mobile phones in a bush.

However, he was stopped from escaping by the ED officials, who also recovered the mobile phone.

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