KOLKATA: Arpita Mukherjee, a close aide of former West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee, who was arrested in connection with the School Service Commission (SSC) scam, was released on bail by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday after spending two years in custody.
However, Partha Chatterjee and four other co-accused were not granted bail as the Calcutta High Court delivered a split verdict in their case.
Granting bail to Mukherjee, who was in judicial remand, the ED court judge at Bankshall Court here directed her to furnish a bond of Rs 5 lakh with adequate sureties, half of which should be local.
She was also directed not to leave the territorial jurisdiction of Kolkata Police without the leave of this court and would have to appear before the court on every day of hearing of the school jobs case.
Chatterjee and the other co-accused had filed bail pleas, which were heard by a division bench of Justice Arijit Bandyopadhyay and Justice Apurba Sinha Roy
While Justice Bandyopadhyay granted bail to all nine accused who had appealed, Justice Roy opposed granting bail to Chatterjee, along with four former education department officials—Subiresh Bhattacharya, Ashok Saha, Kalyanmoy Gangopadhyay, and Shanti Prasad Sinha.
As a result, the matter will be referred back to Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam of the Calcutta High Court, who will constitute a new bench to decide the bail pleas of Chatterjee and the four other accused.
Chatterjee, arrested on July 23, 2022, by the ED in connection with the state school recruitment scam, was later taken into custody by the CBI.
Four other education department officials were also arrested by the CBI in the case.
The former Trinamool Congress leader, who has been in jail for more than two years, has filed multiple bail applications in both the High Court and the Supreme Court, all of which have been rejected by single and division benches.
Earlier this year, a bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh of the Calcutta High Court had dismissed Chatterjee's bail plea in a case registered by the ED.
The scam came to light after Chatterjee and several other officials were arrested in July 2022 for their alleged involvement in the illegal recruitment of teachers.
During a raid at Mukherjee’s residence, the ED seized approximately Rs 50 crore in cash and jewellery worth over Rs 1 crore.
The CBI and ED are investigating irregularities in the recruitment of Group C and D staff and teachers for government-run and aided schools in West Bengal.
The recruitment process began in 2016, when Chatterjee was serving as the state’s education minister, following a 2014 notification for the appointment of teachers through the State Level Selection Test (SLST).
The Calcutta High Court has been inundated with petitions alleging irregularities, with claimants stating that candidates who scored lower marks were ranked higher and that some individuals not on the merit list were granted appointment letters.
