Kolkata, March 5 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the multi-crore cash-for-school job case in West Bengal has obtained specific details on several candidates who secured school jobs after submitting blank answer sheets in the written examination for recruitment.

The CBI also provided the details on this count, with the names of the relevant candidates, in a recent report filed at Calcutta High Court on the matter. Sources said that these candidates, who got jobs after submitting blank answer sheets, appeared in the examinations in the period between 2016 and 2022.

Such candidates were accommodated mainly through manipulations made in the optical mark recognition (OMR) sheets used in the written examination, many of which were destroyed to wipe out evidence without proper authorization.

In the report, sources said, the CBI sleuths have mentioned a specific instance of how the kingpins in the alleged scam had collected money even by arm-twisting the candidates who had already paid money for securing school jobs.

Sources added that in 2015 the results of as many as 752 such candidates were deliberately withheld on technical grounds with the real intention being extorting more money from them. At a later stage when their results were published, it was noticed that 300 of the 752 candidates were found eligible for recruitment and they even got appointments for joining different state-run schools in the state.

In the report, the central agency sleuths have also given details on how fake websites were opened to gain the confidence of the candidates paying money to secure jobs.

Recently, the CBI submitted a charge sheet at a special court in Kolkata in the school job case, where they specifically mention that former West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee personally scrutinized job recommendations for candidates paying money.

In the same charge sheet, CBI had also claimed that besides written recommendations the same made through WhatsApp and SMS messages were also entertained. The details of all such recommendations were mentioned in the annexures attached with the charge sheet filed by the central agency on this count.

Chatterjee, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the school job case in July 2022, has also been identified as the main brain in the scam in the charge sheet filed by ED.

Besides him, his close associate Arpita Mukherjee and his son-in-law are among the other accused individuals, as mentioned in the ED’s charge sheet. A trust titled Babli Chatterjee Memorial Trust, a trust named after Chatterjee’s deceased wife, is also named in the ED charge sheet as an accused entity. It is alleged that the ill-proceeds were shown as donations to this particular trust and thus diverted.

–IANS

src/dpb