Job `SOLD` for 20 lakhs! Calcutta High Court orders CBI probe in Primary TET Corruption Case

Primary TET Corruption Case: Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay directed that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will conduct an inquiry in the case and look into the role of Chandan Mondal in the alleged corruption of recruitment in primary TET.

The Calcutta high court has ordered a CBI inquiry into the primary teacher recruitment case after the School Service Commission (SSC). Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay directed that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will conduct an inquiry in the case and look into the role of  Chandan Mondal in the alleged corruption of recruitment in primary TET. The court has clearly directed that the CBI will investigate the facebook allegations made by former CBI director and former state minister Upendranath Biswas. The Calcutta High Court has directed that the CBI will summon both Upendranath Biswas and Chandan Mondal and question them for the purpose of investigation. The CBI can also question someone else if it wants to. If Chandan does not cooperate in the investigation, he can also be taken into CBI custody, the judge said.

Within seven days, the CBI will have to submit a report to the Calcutta High Court on the course of the investigation. The next hearing in the case is on June 15. However, for the time being, the Primary Education Board is out of the CBI investigation in the case related to the recruitment of primary teachers, but based on the allegations of recruitment corruption, the board will have to submit a report in the form of an affidavit of two weeks. The court has ordered both of them to be made party to the case. 

Two cases were filed in the Calcutta High Court challenging the initial recruitment process. One case was filed by Soumen Nandi. The same case was heard in the court of High Court Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay. During the hearing, the petitioner's lawyer Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya brought to the notice of the court the Facebook post of Upendranath, a former minister of backward classes welfare department who had recently surfaced on social media about corruption in the recruitment of primary teachers. While minister Upendranath did not directly mention Chandan Mondal's name, one of them referred to 'Bagda Ranjan' as the mastermind of this corruption. 

The lawyer said Upendranath mentioned that he came to know about the sale of the job from a close friend. In his Facebook post in 2021, Upendranath said that he came to know that 'Bagda Ranjan' alias 'Chandan' sold the job of primary and upper primary teacher. 'Bagda Ranjan' charged Rs 10 lakh for primary and Rs 15 to 20 lakh for upper primary. The bid for secondary-higher secondary has gone up from Rs 25 to Rs 30 lakh. However, Upendranath did not reveal who this 'Bagda Ranjan' really was, at that time. The board questioned the admissibility of the case.  

In this context, lawyers Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya and Firdous Shamim said that in the 2014 TET for the recruitment of primary teachers, 86 candidates were allegedly working as primary teachers without passing exam. The lawyer complained against the concerned department for not giving information of 68 people. There were also 18 TET failures but many got jobs. The lawyer claimed that Papia Mukherjee got the job by submitting a white paper. In this regard, the primary education board lawyer Laxmi Gupta said that the allegations made in the case are baseless.