Bengal school jobs scam: CBI arrests 2 former SSC officers

Both were named in an FIR filed by the CBI that was interrogating them since Tuesday morning.

The move comes over two weeks after the arrest of former education minister Partha Chatterjee and his associate Arpita Mukherjee by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the case.

This is the first time that CBI has made any arrest in the case. The central agency has already interrogated Partha, Shanti Prasad Sinha and Trinammol MLA Manik Bhattacharya in the case several times.

The CBI officials said that Sinha and Saha were trying to mislead the investigators during their questioning.

Soon after arresting them, the CBI got their medical check-up done and the two will be produced in court on Thursday morning.

Earlier, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court had formed a committee under a retired judge that indicated that there was manipulation of marks of candidates, changes in ranks besides forging of recommendation/appointment letters among other things.

It was on the basis of the committee’s report that the division bench of Justices Subrata Talukdar and Ananda Kumar Mukherjee had upheld the directive of a single-judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay ordering CBI inquiry into the case.

The committee had also said in its report that Sinha, Saha and other officials were also involved in the alleged conspiracy.

Later, the CBI said in a press release that the accused allegedly extended undue advantage while appointing undeserving and unlisted candidates to the posts of Group-C staff in schools in collusion with each other.