School recruitment scam: Partha conduct a shame, says Bengal Minister

KOLKATA: West Bengal Minister Firhad Hakim on Wednesday called the conduct of his former colleague Partha Chatterjee, arrested by the ED in an alleged school recruitment scam, as shameful. He said the ruling TMC would not tolerate such people.

Hakim’s statement came in the backdrop of the Calcutta High Court’s direction to the ED to become a party in a PIL about the assets and property details of 19 top TMC leaders, including seven ministers.

Hitting out at opposition, Hakim said the leaders and former ministers of Left Front’s regime and Congress were also mentioned in a list under the HC scanner.

“What Chatterjee did was a shame. Our party will not tolerate it. I cannot recognise this Chatterjee whom I knew. This doesn’t prove that everyone in the TMC is a thief,’’ said Hakim in a press conference with four ministers beside him.

Hakim alleged the opposition was trying to defame the TMC with a narrative that everyone in the party was corrupt. Meanwhile, the CBI, probing the recruitment scam in schools through the School Service Commission (SSC), on Wednesday arrested two former officials of the SSC. The agency said the two were arrested for suppressing facts and misleading investigators.

The accused former convenor of an advisory committee of the SSC Santiprasad Sinha and former chairman of the commission Ashok Saha allegedly had recommended names of many candidates and ensured job as group C and group D staff in schools for them, ignoring the deserving candidates.