On Friday, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted a raid on the properties of West Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee as part of an investigation into irregularities in the recruitment of teachers and non-teaching employees at state-run schools via the School Service Commission (SSC).
The raids are being conducted at 13 locations belonging to the Minister for his involvement in the SSC scam. According to the reports, when the alleged unlawful recruitments had occurred, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader who is the Industry Minister at present was the Education Minister.
As a part of the inquiry into the SSC recruiting scandal, Chatterjee, the state’s Industry Minister, was also questioned by the CBI in May this year. The CBI had summoned him after a division bench of the Calcutta High Court upheld a single court’s orders for the central investigative agency to investigate suspected fraudulent appointments.
The CBI had also questioned West Bengal Education Secretary Manish Jain last week in connection with an alleged fraud. Earlier, in May, the Calcutta High Court had disallowed West Bengal’s Education Minister Paresh Adhikari’s daughter Ankita Adhikari from entering the school premises where she worked as a teacher and also had asked her to refund the salary for the tenure she has already served.
Adhikari and his daughter were issued a summons by the CBI. As the duo skipped the summons on May 19, this year, the CBI registered an FIR against Adhikari and his daughter named Ankita Adhikari. The agency had also grilled Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee then.
The SSC Scam
The CBI has been investigating several cases where teaching and non-teaching staff in the state of West Bengal were allegedly appointed illegally in schools following recommendations by the West Bengal Central School Service Commission (SSC).
The West Bengal Teacher’s recruitment scam, more commonly referred to as the SSC scam, looks into the recruitment process conducted through the State Level Selection Test (SLT) conducted by SSC from 2014 to 2016. Candidates who appeared for the State Level Selection Test (SLST) exam had alleged that many candidates who secured fewer marks ended up with higher ranks on the merit list. They further stated that the candidates who were not on the merit list were also sent appointment letters.
Also, in the year 2016, multiple allegations of corruption cropped up regarding the recruitment of Group C and Group D employees in secondary and higher secondary schools under the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education. The matter came to light in March this year after irregularities were noticed in the recruitment process of teachers in the state government schools.