Teachers who played role of agents in Bengal school job case, under CBI lens

Kolkata, June 24 (IANS) The CBI is investigating some teachers working in government schools in West Bengal who are suspected to have played the role of middlemen in the cash-for-school job case.

Sources said the role of teachers as middlemen surfaced during the interrogation of some candidates suspected of getting their appointments after paying hefty amounts.

Sources said that 11 teachers and two non-teaching staff working in state-run schools are under the scanner of the central agency for their role in the recruitments.

They are among the 35 new middlemen whose names surfaced during investigation in the last few months.

Investigating officials revealed that different rates were charged for different postings.

The highest amount was charged for postings closest to the residence of the candidates.

CBI officials have prima facie identified around 2,500 candidates who got jobs against payments in 2016 alone.

The CBI as well as the ED in their separate charge sheets in the school job case, have identified former West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee as the mastermind in the entire case.

The central agencies, in their charge sheet, have also tried to establish the easy access influential middlemen had to the residence of Partha Chatterjee.

Partha Chatterjee has been in judicial custody since 2022 after being arrested by the ED in the case.