Kolkata: The order for a CBI probe in the primary teacher's recruitment irregularities case issued by the Calcutta High Court's single-judge bench of Justice Avijit Gangopadhyay was challenged in a division bench on Thursday.
Justice Gangopadhyay's order is divided into two sections. His bench ordered a CBI investigation into the matter on June 13, 2022. However, given the gravity of the decision, Justice Gangopadhyay went one step further and requested that the CBI constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the case solely.
Now, on Thursday afternoon, the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE), whose officials have been blamed for the irregularities, has filed a petition with Justice Subrata Talukdar of the Calcutta High Court's division bench, challenging the entire order for a CBI investigation into the matter by Justice Gangopadhyay.
The first hearing in the case will be held on June 20 after Justice Talukdar's bench accepted the challenge petition from WBBPE. The WBBPE claimed in their petition that the recruitment process was completely transparent and that no irregularities had occurred.
On June 13, Justice Gangopadhyay ordered the CBI to investigate the matter and ordered the immediate cancellation of the appointments of 269 primary school teachers who allegedly received jobs in violation of all rules, including some who did not receive qualifying marks and others who did not even appear for the entrance examination.
While ordering the CBI to constitute a SIT to investigate the incident on June 15, Justice Gangopadhyay further stated that the members of the SIT cannot be assigned to any other investigative assignment or even transferred until the investigation process on this count is completed.
After being assigned so many CBI probes since November last year, Justice Gangopadhyay voiced dissatisfaction with the progress of the investigations in all of these cases.
The West Bengal Board of School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment irregularities scheme is already being investigated by the CBI, which has also questioned former state education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee over it.
(To receive our E-paper on whatsapp daily, please click here. To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
