Arrested Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee was removed from his ministries with immediate effect on Thursday. This comes after the demand within the ruling party for dismissal of Chatterjee from the cabinet grew louder over the days.
Chatterjee held the portfolios of parliamentary affairs, commerce & industry, information technology and electronics, and public enterprises in Mamata Banerjee's cabinet. These ministries will be looked at by Mamata for the time being. He is also suspended from the party.
"Partha Chatterjee, minister in charge, department of industry, commerce and enterprises, department of information technology and electronics, department of parliamentary affairs and department of public enterprises and industrial reconstruction, is hereby relieved of his duties as MIC of the aforesaid department with immediate effect," an official order said.
This came soon after ED recovered Rs 50 crores after an 18-hour raid at Mukherjee's two flats in Belgharia area of the city. Last week, chatterjee and his close aide Arpita Mukherjee were taken into custody by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on July 23. The investigators had found Rs 21 crore in cash at Mukherjee’s premises besides jewellery and foreign exchange in south Kolkata's Tollygunge area.
TMC MLA Manik Bhattacharya reached the Enforcement Directorate office in the city Wednesday morning. Bhattacharya, who is the ex-president of West Board of Secondary Education and an MLA from Nadia district.
Here’s what we know so far about the scam.
What is the teacher recruitment scam?
The scam allegedly began in 2014 when the West Bengal government notified the public by issuing a notice for the appointment of teachers through the State Level Selection Test (SLST). Recruitment, however, only began in 2016 when Chatterjee was the Minister for Higher Education and School Education Department in the state.
Soon after the recruitment process started, various petitioners approached the Calcutta High Court over the discrepancies in the selection process. Petitioners stated that many individuals with fewer marks received high ranks on the merit list, and many others received appointment letters even though they were not on the merit list.
At the same time, in a different but related case, the West Bengal government opened up recruitment for 13,000 Group-D employees for state-run/aided schools. The government issued a notice to the School Service Commission (SSC) and a panel for the recruitment was appointed, which expired in 2019. Despite the tenure of the panel responsible coming to an end, it was alleged during hearings that over 500 individuals had been appointed and were employed by the government at the time.
As a result, the Calcutta High Court ordered an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
What did the agencies find?
The probe by the agency alleged that the appointment of 69 primary school teachers in Bengal government-sponsored and -aided schools were illegal due to the teachers not managing to clear the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET). The agency stated that for TET 2014, the question paper and its evaluation process were both circumvented to allow ineligible candidates to become eligible and for actually eligible candidates to be deprived.
Some of the ineligible candidates submitted blank papers and still got appointments as assistant teachers in primary schools. The agency also stated that the additional panel was also created in a dubious manner for showing favouritism and nepotism in the selection process, with many panellists not having cleared the TET themselves.
While the CBI is investigating the criminal aspects of the case, the ED is looking at the money laundering scope of the scam.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
First Published: Jul 26, 2022 1:41 PM IST
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