More than 600 appointments were allegedly made illegally in eight municipalities in Bengal, with a senior IAS officer allegedly involved in the recruitment process, the CBI said in a chargesheet submitted on Friday.
The IAS officer, who was the director of the directorate of local bodies (DLB) at the time, has been named in the chargesheet submitted before the special CBI court in
Alipore.
Another prominent figure mentioned in the chargesheet is businessman Ayan Sil, arrested for his alleged role in irregular recruitments in state-aided schools.
Sil’s company, ABS Infozon, had reportedly secured contracts to recruit staff in the municipalities, the chargesheet alleges.
According to CBI sources, ABS Infozon was entrusted with barcoding and evaluating OMR (optical mark recognition) sheets.
However, the company allegedly charged separate fees ranging from ₹4 lakh to ₹7 lakh per candidate for recruitment in different categories, including Group D staff, drivers, cleaners, and typists.
Bengal has 123 municipalities and six municipal corporations, in addition to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC).
While the collective sanctioned strength of staff in these urban bodies is just over 79,000, the current strength is around 39,000.
Senior officials in the urban development department said that prior to the 2018-19 financial year, municipal recruitments were conducted through agencies recommended by the DLB
The system was later discontinued, and the West Bengal Municipal Service Commission was entrusted with all recruitments, similar to the process followed by KMC.
“The chargesheet takes into account analysis of piles of documents that were retrieved during the investigation from different places, including various municipalities, statements of several accused persons, the alleged criminal conspiracy hatched between different persons and electronic surveillance,” a senior CBI officer said.
Both the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) have been probing the alleged irregularities in recruitments in Bengal’s municipalities.
CBI sources said that their investigations revealed that in 2017, Sil’s company won contracts for recruitment in several municipalities.
The actual recruitment of candidates in these municipalities took place two years later, in 2019.
Officers of the central agency alleged Ayan’s company would tamper with OMR sheets of deserving candidates by filling up a blank space in addition to the one meant for the correct answer.
This ensured that deserving candidates ended up securing lower marks compared to the ones from whom he allegedly collected money, an ED official said.