Kolkata: Several Trinamool Congress leaders (TMC) and their relatives figured in the list of 1,106 tainted teachers that the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) released on Saturday night following the Supreme Court’s August 28 order in the bribe-for-job case.
All these people were in the 2016 recruitment panel that the Supreme Court scrapped in April.
While the TMC state leadership did not defend anyone on Sunday, those under scanner either challenged the authenticity of the list published on the WBSSC’s website or ducked questions from the media.
“Law will take its own course. I don’t have any information. How can I say anything without seeing any document?” Nirmal Ghosh, the TMC chief whip in the legislative assembly, said after the name of his daughter-in-law Sampa Ghosh, a life science teacher, appeared in the list.
“The court’s judgement will show what is true and what is not,” Ghosh, who represents the Panihati seat in North 24 Parganas district, added.
The WBSSC released a list of 1,104 names around 8 pm on Saturday and added two more names later in the night.
Roshnara Khatun, an English teacher and daughter of Hamidul Rahaman, the TMC MLA from North Dinajpur district’s Chopra, figured among the two names added later.
“They will verify and do what is required. What can I say?” Rahaman said, avoiding more questions.
Kanaia Lal Agarwal, TMC’s North Dinajpur district unit president said: “I feel sorry for the eligible candidates who lost their jobs. I hope they all pass the fresh selection test order by the Supreme Court and get their jobs back.”
Kuheli Ghosh, a TMC councillor at the Rajpur-Sonarpur municipality on the southern outskirts of Kolkata reacted sharply on seeing her name.
“I had filed a case when my name appeared in a list the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) submitted before the Calcutta high court in 2022. I don’t know why my name has appeared again. I will move court on Monday,” Ghosh told a Bengali news channel.
Kabita Burman, who was president of the TMC-controlled North Dinajpur zilla parishad from 2018 to 2023 before joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also figured in the list of tainted teachers.
“This list is incorrect. I don’t know what happened. We will move court,” she told the local media.
TMC leaders from the lower rungs also came under focus after the names were made public.
Md Nazibullah, son of TMC’s Barasat community block unit leader Md Isha Haque Sardar, claimed that he was recruited on the basis of merit.
“I got my job on merit. There is no TMC or BJP in the appointment process. This list is not authentic. We will move the court,” Md Nazibullah said.
The investigation started in May 2022 when the Calcutta high court ordered the CBI to probe the appointments of non-teaching staff (Group C and D) and teaching staff by the WBSSC and West Bengal Board of Secondary Education between 2014 and 2021 when TMC leader Partha Chatterjee was the education minister. The appointees allegedly paid bribes in the range of ₹5-15 lakh to get jobs. ED started a parallel investigation.
After a series of hearings at the high court, the appointments of all 25,752 school teachers and non-teaching staff (Group-C and D) from the 2016 recruitment panel were cancelled by the bench of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) on April 3. The bench said there was no way to segregate the tainted from the non-tainted.
On an appeal by the state, the top court said on April 17 that the non-tainted teachers may be allowed to continue in service until December 31 but they must go through a fresh selection test.
The top court ordered WBSSC on August 28 to release the list of tainted candidates after a section of the job losers complained that the tainted appointees were allowed to sit for the exam in violation of the Supreme Court order.
The BJP targeted the ruling party on Sunday, saying the list was a testimony to corruption by the state government.
“The government has put its seal on its own corruption but this list is incomplete. The number of tainted teachers is much higher,” BJP Bengal unit president Samik Bhattacharya said.
CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member and senior lawyer Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, who represented the victims of the corruption at the high court and Supreme Court, said, “This is just a fraction of the names. There are around 7000 identified tainted teachers and most of them are linked to TMC. The ruling party took money from its own people to raise funds.”
TMC spokesperson Jay Prakash Majumdar countered the Opposition.
“By publishing the list, WBSSC has shown that no attempt was made to shield anyone. This proves the government’s honesty and impartiality,” said Majumdar.
TMC Lok Sabha member and senior lawyer Kalyan Banerjee represented WBSSC at the Supreme Court.
“Let the BJP leaders move the Supreme Court if they have complaints. WBSSC has followed the court’s order,” Banerjee said.
The list was published days after Jiban Krishna Saha, the TMC MLA from Murshidabad district’s Burwan constituency was arrested on August 25 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The ED told a Kolkata court on Saturday that it had traced at least 100 people from whom Saha allegedly took money by promising jobs.
CBI arrested Saha in April 2023. A court granted him bail in May 2024.
Partha Chatterjee was arrested by ED in July 2022. He is currently in judicial custody. ED framed charges against Chatterjee, his associate Arpita Mukherjee, ex-state primary education board president and MLA Manik Bhattacharya and 51 others in January this year.
ED filed chargesheet against correctional services minister Chandranath Sinha, too, on August 6. He has been asked to appear before the designated ED court in Kolkata on September 12.
