Take Prompt & Necessary Action: Calcutta High Court Directs State To Initiate Proceedings Against Teacher-Recruitment Scam Beneficiaries

The Calcutta High Court recently directed the West Bengal Board of Primary Education to take appropriate steps against beneficiaries in the infamous Teacher-Recruitment scam, identified in a list produced by the Central Bureau of Investigation (“CBI”) and Enforcement Directorate (“ED”) upon earlier orders of the Court.

In perusing the list of names produced by the CBI and ED, a single-bench of Justice Amrita Sinha held:

Report filed by the CBI…shows ninety-six candidates who did not qualify Teacher Entrance Test (“TET”) 2014 but got appointment. A further list of forty-six candidates who were not trained as per TET 2014 examination has been annexed to the report. It appears that the ED has also prepared list of the selected suspected teachers whose names/roll numbers were found in the seized documents/digital records obtained from various accused persons. The list of the said candidates shall immediately be forwarded by the CBI and ED to the West Bengal Board of Primary Education for verification. The Board shall verify the credentials of the said candidates and if it appears that any of the candidates in the said list was appointed dehors the provisions of law, without requisite qualifications, and outside the merit list, then prompt necessary steps shall be taken against him/her.

During the course of the hearing, the Court observed that upon perusing the reports filed by the investigation agencies, it was clear that the people involved in the Municipal scam and Recruitment scam were “more or less the same and the modus operandi and proceeds of crime are intermingling with each other.”

In directing for the investigation to be a court-monitored one, the Bench directed for both the scams to be investigated by the same officials.

Another facet of the investigation which was brought to the notice of the Court, was a press release made by the ED, which named one accused Sujay Krisha Bhadra, CEO of Leaps & Bounds Pvt Ltd, which was a company used for making “dubious transaction running into crores of rupees.”

Court noted that Trinamool Congress MP, Abhishek Banerjee was an Executive Officer in the aforesaid company from 2012-2016 as well as a Director between 2012-2014, and that while CEO Sujay Bhadra had been arrested, there was “no mention of any investigation in respect of the Chief Executive Officer or any other Director or member of the Company.”

In adjourning the matter till 14^th September, the Bench directed the CBI and ED to be prompt in their investigation of the matter and file further reports regarding those “agents” who took money from unemployed youths in exchange of job promises.

Case: Soumen Nandy v. The State of West Bengal & Ors. and connected applications

Coram: Justice Amrita Sinha

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