Calcutta HC rejects bail prayers of former West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee, four others

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday rejected the bail petitions of former West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee and four other ex-public servants in a CBI case over an alleged school jobs recruitment scam.

Besides Chatterjee, Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty also rejected the bail prayers of former West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) chairman Subires Bhattacharya, former state secondary education board president Kalyanmoy Ganguly, former chairman of SSC’s advisory committee S P Saha, and former SSC secretary Ashok Saha.

Earlier, a division bench comprising justices Arijit Banerjee and Apurba Sinha Roy differed in their separate judgments on the bail prayers of the five accused.

The matter was thereafter assigned to the single bench of Justice Chakraborty by the HC chief justice for adjudication.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had opposed the bail prayers, claiming that though the investigation against the five in the alleged school jobs scam had been completed, the overall probe into the irregularities in recruitments is still ongoing.

The central agency’s counsel claimed that their enlargement on bail at this stage may affect the probe, as the accused are influential.

Chatterjee, who held the education portfolio from 2011 to 2021, had moved a bail application before the high court along with other former public servants who are in jail for about two years in connection with the school jobs irregularities case.