The Enforcement Directorate on Monday arrested Trinamool Congress MLA Jiban Krishna Saha in the school recruitment scam, after the 48-year-old allegedly tried to escape by scaling the boundary wall of his home and fell into a gutter.
The MLA from Burwan in Murshidabad, accused of accepting lakhs of rupees in bribery from school recruitment exam candidates, had been arrested by the CBI in the same case in April 2023 but secured bail from the Supreme Court in May 2024.
As during his previous arrest, sources said, he had on Monday morning thrown two mobile phones into a pond at his Murshidabad home.
After almost five hours of questioning, Saha was brought to Calcutta where a court remanded him in ED custody till August 30.
The ED counsel told the court that Saha had fallen into a drain inside his compound while trying to climb the boundary wall when the agency officers arrived in the morning. Mud and filth spattered across his white T-shirt and trousers, Saha was allowed to change into fresh clothes.
The court was also told that Saha had thrown two cellphones into a water body but these had been recovered with the help of CCTV footage at his home, sources said.
A former high-school teacher, Saha had won the Burwan seat in 2021, defeating the BJP’s Amiya Kumar Das by more than 2,500 votes.
TMC MLA Jiban Krishna Saha
The charges against him are linked to the irregular recruitments to state-aided schools that have led the Supreme Court to scrap over 25,000 appointments.
At the court, the ED said Saha was believed to have collected ₹46 lakh from eight candidates who wrote the selection test in 2016. The amounts collected from each ranged between ₹1 lakh and ₹12.5 lakh, the court was told.
Of this amount, ₹26 lakh had been transferred to the bank account of Saha’s wife in September and December 2020, the ED claimed. A part of the remaining amount was parked in the bank account of the MLA’s father,it added.
Separate ED teams searched multiple locations, including the homes of Saha’s in-laws in Murshidabad and the house of his aunt, Maya Saha, a Trinamool councillor in Birbhum.
“Saha’s custody is required to find out who else is involved,” the public prosecutor told the court.
The MLA’s lawyers did not press for bail; they sought his release, instead.
CRPF jawans near TMC MLA Jiban Krishna Saha's home at Burwan in Murshidabad on Monday. Picture by Samim Aktar
“Saha has been cooperating with the agency. He appeared for questioning on three occasions when the ED summoned him. Even his wife has faced interrogators twice,” Saha’s counsel told the court.
The ED argued that since Saha’s lawyers had not sought bail, the agency should be granted custody.
Sources said Saha had initially refused to share the password of his mobile phone and evaded questions about the transfers made to his wife’s bank account.
When Saha threw his mobiles into the pond in April 2023, the CBI had pumped the water out and recovered the gadgets before sending them for forensic tests.
Trinamool alleged vendetta politics by the BJP ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls.
“I will not comment about the arrest, in particular. But the Prime Minister has realised that the BJP lacks organisation in the state and won’t be able to achieve much,” Trinamool general secretary Kunal Ghosh said. “So, the organisations that are under the BJP’s power havebeen unleashed.”
“The arrest is just one step,” a senior BJP leader said, adding that the big fish must be identified to “get at the root of the corruption”.
Burwan had been an RSP stronghold for decades before the Congress won it twice in 2011 and 2016. Saha is the first from Trinamool to represent the constituency.