After being questioned for nearly three days – 65 hours – the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Trinamool MLA Jiban Krishna Saha, in a probe concerning the irregularities in recruitment of teachers in the state’s schools. Saha’s arrest succeeds the arrest of two other MLAs in the past – Partha Chatterjee, and Manik Bhattacharya.
On production in the court, Saha was sent to a four-day CBI custody.
The searches concerning the MLA from Burwan constituency were being conducted since Friday, and he was questioned a number of times. During the searches at his residence, five bags full of documents were recovered in the bushes, adjacent to the boundary wall of his residence’s premises.
The documents with photographs, allegedly, were of the aspiring candidates who had submitted bribes, estimated to be running in crores of rupees, and the agency is continuing its investigation.
Saha, allegedly, had thrown two cellphones into the pond, adjacent to his house, later recovered by the agency, after a consistent search.
The recruitment scam, and the following probe, has shaken the regional politics – with the ruling party, and the leading one in Opposition pointing fingers at each other.
Several accused, including Chatterjee, the former education minister, are in jail for their alleged role in the scam where jobs were promised and provided in the government-run schools, and irregular appointments, allegedly, were preferred over the merit of the candidates for financial return.