Bengal Teacher Recruitment Scam: Another Blow To Mamata, CBI Arrests TMC MLA Jiban Krishna Saha

Jiban Krishna Saha is the third Trinamool Congress MLA after Partha Chatterjee and Manik Bhattacharya to be arrested by CBI in the West Bengal teachers' recruitment scam case.

New Delhi: In yet another blow to Mamata Banerjee, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday arrested Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA Jiban Krishna Saha in the West Bengal teachers' recruitment scam case. Saha, the TMC MLA from Burwan, was being interrogated by the premier investigating agency since Friday, during which he had also managed to throw away his mobile phones into a pond when CBI sleuths were at his residence. The CBI has alleged that he was the main conduit who was allegedly collecting money from the aspirants for the recruitment of teachers for classes 9-10.

Jiban Krishna Saha is now the third TMC MLA after Partha Chatterjee and Manik Bhattacharya to be arrested by CBI in the ongoing probe. The scam is related to the recruitment in state-run and-aided schools and the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate are currently investigating the case and the alleged money trail involved in it on orders of the Calcutta High Court.

Earlier on Sunday, the CBI fished out from a pond a mobile phone of Jiban Krishna Saha, who was facing a marathon interrogation at his residence in West Bengal's Bardhaman district. A CBI official said that the TMC lawmaker had thrown his two mobile phones into the pond adjacent to his house around 30 hours ago and one of them was retrieved after pumping out all water from it. The second phone, however, is yet to be found.

Experts were at work to retrieve the data stored in the recovered device, the official added.

CBI officers seized at least five bags, full of documents, from a garbage dumping site near Saha's residence, he said.

A team of CBI sleuths on April 15 had also raided the house of former TMC block president Bibhas Adhikari in Birbhum district for his alleged involvement in the school job scandal. An ashram with which Adhikari is associated was also raided in connection with the investigation, an official informed. 

CBI officers also raided Adhikari's locked flat in the Amherst Street area in Kolkata and seized papers from there.

Former state minister Partha Chatterjee, who held the education portfolio between 2014 and 2021 when the irregularities in the recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in state government-sponsored and-aided schools are alleged to have taken place, and another MLA Manik Bhattacharya, who is a former president of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education, were arrested earlier.