Teacher recruitment scandal, former Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee was given bail

In the case of the teachers recruitment Fraud, the Calcutta high court on Friday granted bail to Partha Chatterjee, the former education minister of West Bengal.

A single-judge panel led by Justice Suvra Ghosh granted the bail. However, the court has asked Chatterjee to surrender his passport and not leave the jurisdiction of the trial court while on bail.

While his trial is ongoing, Chatterjee will not be appointed to any public post, the court further declared.

Chatterjee was accused of being involved in illegal recruitment of unmerited candidates on several teaching and non-teaching posts in the education department in West Bengal when he was the education minister.

When the Calcutta High Court directed the Central Bureau of inquiry to look into the anomalies in these appointments using SSC and WBBSE exams between 2014 and 2021, the case’s inquiry got underway in May 2022.

Since 2001, Chaterjee has served in West Bengal’s legislative assembly. From 2011 to 2022, he served as a minister in the state. Since 2016, he has been in charge of the education portfolio.

The bail comes two weeks after the CBI filed final charges against Partha Chatterjee, ex-West Bengal minister Paresh Adhikari and his daughter, along with 18 others in the bribery-for-job case at Kolkata’s Alipore court.

Despite failing the selection examinations, some individuals who were recruited to teaching and non-teaching roles were accused of paying bribes ranging from ₹5 to 15 lakh to secure their employment.

On April 3 of this year, the Chief Justice of India‘s bench canceled the appointments of all 25,752 teachers and non-teaching employees from the 2016 recruitment panel.

In order to demand equitable hiring practices in state government-run schools, a group of job seekers protested on Thursday, September 25, in Salt Lake, Kolkata. The candidates recently took the West Bengal School Service Commission’s State Level Selection Test (SLST), which was held on September 7 and 14.

Some school job seekers protested for fair recruitment in state government-run schools on Thursday, September 25, in Salt Lake, Kolkata. The candidates recently took the State Level Selection Test (SLST), which was held on September 7 and 14 by the West Bengal School Service Commission.