Teachers' scam: Hearing on Abhishek Banerjee's plea concludes, Calcutta HC reserves verdict

Kolkata, May 16 Hearing on the plea moved by Trinamool Congress' national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee for relief from the ambit of CBI probe in the alleged teachers' recruitment scam in West Bengal concluded at Calcutta High Court on Tuesday afternoon.

However, the single-judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha reserved the verdict. Two related cases in the matter were recently transferred to the bench of Justice Sinha from the bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay following a Supreme Court order.

Abhishek Banerjee's name surfaced in the matter after another accused in the alleged recruitment scam and expelled youth Trinamool Congress leader Kuntal Ghosh wrote letters to a local police station as well as to the judge of a lower court accusing central agencies of putting pressure on him to name Banerjee in the alleged scam.

On Tuesday, Dhiraj Trivedi, the counsel for Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is conducting a parallel probe in the matter, argued in the court that Ghosh sent the letters flouting all jail-codes.

"The letter was first sent to the judge of the lower court. Before the matter was settled at the lower court, the copy of the same letter was forwarded to a local police station. This cannot be done legally," Trivedi said.

In his counter, Kuntal Ghosh's counsel said that his client had not made a party in the case despite there were so many developments in the matter over the letters written by him.

On Tuesday, both CBI and ED submitted to the court their respective progress reports on the investigation in sealed envelopes.

During the hearing last week, Justice Sinha had raised questions about the reasons for the petitioner's reluctance in facing the investigation in the matter. Observing that the petitioner should cooperate in the investigation process, Justice Sinha also observed that no one is above investigation.

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