Partha Chatterjee’s remand extended by 14 days

The CBI on Monday submitted in a court that former state education minister Partha Chatterjee was the “mastermind” of a school recruitment scam and he removed a person from the post of the school service commission’s chairperson to facilitate fraudulent recruitments for government-aided schools.

The court extended the judicial remand of Chatterjee by 14 days. “It was found that Partha Chatterjee, without proper justification and against the statutory rule of the SSC, removed Sharmila Mitra from the post of chairperson in order to ensure that the accused, Santi Prasad Sinha, could carry out fraudulent activities in connection with alleged illegalities pertaining to recruitments,” the CBI submitted.

Sinha was then chairman of the advisory committee of the SSC. The agency also submitted that the investigation had revealed that Chatterjee and other accused had forced Saumitra Sarkar to resign as SSC chairman after he expressed unwillingness to be a party to the alleged fraudulent activities related to recruitments.