The judicial custody of former education minister Partha Chatterjee and three former officials of the state education department was on Monday extended till November 28 in the CBI case related to alleged irregularities in the recruitment of Group C staff for government-aided schools.
Counsel representing the CBI submitted that they needed Chatterjee and the other accused in judicial custody for “further investigation”, citing their alleged non-cooperation.
The other accused are Kalyanmoy Ganguly, former president of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education; S.P. Sinha, former chairman of the advisory committee of the school service commission; and Ashok Kumar Saha, former secretary of the SSC.
Lawyer Sk. Salim Rahman, who is representing Chatterjee, said his client had been chargesheeted and was being “unnecessarily” kept in custody on the pretext of “further investigation”. The FIR, Rahman said, does not include Chatterjee’s name.
The judge in the CBI court-I in Alipore, after hearing both sides, extended the judicial remand of the four. The accused are now lodged in Presidency Correctional Home.
During the hearing of another case related to the alleged irregularities in the recruitment of teachers for classes IX and X in government-aided schools, the same court in Alipore enquired about the progress of the investigation and asked why the candidates who allegedly paid bribes to get their names included in the merit list had not been arrested.
When the judge asked the CBI about the progress of the case, the central agency submitted that they had drawn up a list of 677 candidates who had allegedly bribed SSC officials to get their names on the merit list.
The court then asked how many of the 677 candidates had been questioned, said a CBI officer. “The honourable court was informed that four out of the 677 persons have been questioned and that it would take some more time to question the rest,” said the officer.
There was apparently no direct response to the judge’s question on why the candidates who had allegedly bribed SSC officials were not being arrested.
The court extended the judicial remand of the accused in this case till November 28. The accused are Sinha; Subires Bhattacharyya, former vice-chancellor of North Bengal University and former chairman of the SSC; Prasanna Kumar Roy, and Pradip Singh.
World Diabetes Day
Apollo Clinic Narendrapur organised a walk from the clinic on NS Road to the main gate of Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama on Monday morning on the occasion of World Diabetes Day. The walk was followed by a check-up camp and doctor’s consultations
