CBI reveals cash paid for special teacher appointments in West Bengal school recruitment bribery case, seeks FIR to widen probe

KOLKATA: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday informed the Calcutta High Court that besides for regular recruitment for teaching and non-teaching jobs in state-run schools in West Bengal, bribes were also paid for supernumerary recruitment as work-education and physical education teachers for upper primary sections of such schools.During the hearing in the matter before the single-judge bench of Justice Biswajit Basu, the CBI counsel Dhiraj Trivedi told the court that further investigation is required to find the exact number of candidates who paid bribes to get supernumerary appointments as work-education and physical education teachers for upper primary sections.He also said that any investigation by the CBI in the matter will have to be started only after registering a separate FIR in the matter.Trivedi also informed the court that the state government has yet to permit registering the FIR. He said that in such a situation, the central agency would be able to register an investigation after registering the FIR only after getting permission from the court.He also informed the court that the different aspects of the multi-crore cash-for-school job case in West Bengal were linked to each other. “Since the CBI is already probing the other cases related to this alleged scam, it needs the court’s permission to start a separate investigation on the supernumerary recruitment irregularities,” Trivedi submitted.Justice Basu observed that a more detailed hearing in the matter was required. The next date of hearing in the matter has been scheduled on July 4.Earlier in the day, another single-judge bench of Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya made a couple of crucial observations questioning certain points in the new recruitment notification issued by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) in May this year to fill up the post becoming vacant following the cancellation of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff in state-run school by the Supreme Court in April.