School jobs case: CBI collects voice samples of Trinamool legislator
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) collected voice samples from Tapas Kumar Saha, a Trinamool Congress legislator from Tehatta in Nadia district. Saha was at the agency’s Kolkata office for questioning in connection with the multi-crore cash-for-school jobs case in West Bengal.
The recruitments, made in 2016 by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC), were linked to the cash-for-school jobs recruitment “scam”. The SSC had held the selection process in 2016 for assistant teachers for classes nine to 12 and non-teaching staff.
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On May 7th, 2024, the Bench agreed that scrapping all the recruitments would be unwise. The court said valid appointments should be segregated from the illegal ones. The State had argued that even the CBI report had alleged irregularities in the recruitment of only a little over 4,000 appointments. Neither the SSC nor the CBI had ever indicated that the entire recruitment process was tainted.
Previously, the CBI had obtained voice samples from Probir Koyal, Saha’s former personal assistant, while the Enforcement Directorate (ED), conducting a parallel investigation, had collected voice samples from Sujay Krishna Bhadra, a key accused in the case.
Sources indicate that investigators recently acquired a mobile conversation in which one voice was purportedly Saha’s. The new voice samples were taken to verify this.
In April of last year, the CBI conducted extensive raids at Saha’s home and office in Nadia district and seized his mobile phones.
Additionally, the West Bengal Police’s anti-corruption wing arrested Probir Koyal for his alleged involvement in the case. Koyal has claimed he is being framed to protect Saha and admitted to collecting money for jobs, which he stated he handed over to the Trinamool legislator.
