The CBI said on Wednesday it had seized around Rs 50 lakh, a list of around 1,500 candidates for jobs, 1.5kg of gold and property documents from a house linked to a former advisor to the West Bengal School Service Commission.

The agency did not name the advisor and said the property was “allegedly purchased by then advisor of West Bengal School Service Commission and his wife in the name of another person”.

More than one CBI officer said preliminary investigations revealed that Shanti Prasad Sinha, who was chairman of the SSC advisory committee from 2016 till 2021, had paid the apartment’s legal owner the entire amount required to buy the property.

“This apartment was bought a few years ago. We have reasons to believe that Sinha had entirely funded the purchase but it is not in his name. We will ask the owner of the flat about the source of the money and the gold,” said an officer.

In May, the CBI had registered an FIR against five former members of the SSC advisory panel, including Sinha, as part of its probe into alleged irregularities in recruitment for schools. Sinha was arrested in August and is in judicial custody.

CBI officers said the search and seizure operation was carried out late on Tuesday in an apartment off EM Bypass after the sleuths learnt about the existence of the property by interrogating some of those accused in the job scam case.