On August 3, Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee dumped the second disgraced minister after Partha Chatterjee. As per reports, Paresh Chandra Adhikari, whose name surfaced in the infamous SSC scam, found no place in the list of ministers who were supposed to take oath during the Cabinet reshuffle. Adhikari held the responsibility of State Minister for the Department of School Education.
Reportedly, Banerjee has induced fresh faces in the cabinet while a few names, including that of Adhikari, have been removed from the list. It is noteworthy that a PIL was filed in the Calcutta High Court seeking directions to remove Adhikari from his post. In the PIL, the petitioner alleged Adhikary was one of the direct beneficiaries of the SCC scam.
The PIL was filed by state BJP leader Pradipta Arjun before the bench of chief justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bhardwaj. In his PIL, Arjun argued that the orders passed by the single bench of Calcutta High Court comprising Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay clearly showed that Adhikari misused his position to get a job for his daughter Ankita Adhikari as a higher secondary political science teacher. During the process, another eligible candidate was deprived of the job. The court had asked Ankita to return two years of salary and dismissed her from the school.
Shunning ministers might not help Mamata Banerjee
While WB CM Mamata Banerjee is trying her level best to get rid of the blot named ‘SSC Scam’ from her image by shunning the accused minister, it might not help her in the long run. Notably, it was reported on July 31 that Partha Chatterjee had allegedly confessed the involvement of the party high command in the School Service Commission (SSC) scam.
Reports suggest that Chatterjee told investigators that everyone in the TMC, including top party leadership, was privy to his activities. He alleged that fellow TMC members were aware that money was collected in exchange for providing government school jobs to ineligible candidates.
Besides, Partha Chatterjee has also alleged that the top leaders of the Trinamool Congress visited the properties that he bought in the name of Arpita Mukherjee. He also said that the party needed a front like an actress to stash the money.
Speaking on the matter, an ED official said that Chatterjee claimed to be just a custodian of the money. He neither asked nor accepted money from any candidate. He was allegedly following orders of the party’s senior leaders and was supposed to sign documents prepared by others.
Another official of the central agency informed that Partha Chatterjee has confessed to the involvement of other Departments in providing jobs via fraudulent means to ineligible candidates.
Considering what Partha said during the questioning by ED, it can be assumed that Banerjee was aware of what was happening during recruitments. Simply removing the accused ministers is not going to save her name from getting dragged into the controversy.