The CBI will question the “influential people” whose names have emerged among those who allegedly referred names of ineligible candidates for school jobs.

Such a list was initiated by former education minister Partha Chatterjee, the central agency said in the court, objecting to his bail on Thursday.

The CBI had got hold of a list during seizures from Bikash Bhavan, which mentioned the names of several politicians and bureaucrats who had allegedly recommended ineligible candidates for jobs, sources said.

The central agency will now start to question them, it told the court.

CBI sources said the agency had stumbled upon a list comprising 321 names of candidates, of whom 134 were later recruited.

“This list was handed over to Manik Bhattacharya by...Chatterjee. Many of the candidates were recommended by some influential people. We are going to question them as well,” said the CBI counsel at the court.

Bhattacharya was the chairperson of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education at the time of the alleged recommendation.

“We will also examine if these 134 candidates... had been chosen based on the recommendations,” the CBI counsel said.

The list of influential people includes the name of a brother of a senior BJP leader, a former woman IPS officer turned BJP leader, a Trinamul Congress MLA and a TMC MP.

The central agency prayed that as Chatterjee was a politician his bail would influence the course of the probe. He was not granted bail on Thursday.

Chatterjee is now in judicial remand.