School Jobs Scam: CBI searches TMC MLA’s office

In the supplementary chargesheet filed last week, the agency said that Kuntal Ghosh, the former Trinamool Congress youth wing leader arrested in the teachers’ hiring scam, was also involved in providing affiliations and no-objection certificates (NOCs) to B.ED and D.El.Ed colleges in connivance with Partha Chatterjee and then West Bengal Board of Primary Education chairman Manik Bhattacharya in lieu of money.

It says Kuntal was in a regular contact with Gopal Dalpati, an alleged middleman in the school jobs scam who is also under the ED scanner.

The chargesheet reads, “Kuntal Ghosh admitted that Tapas Kumar Mondal paid him Rs 3.25 crore in cash and through bank transactions. He further confessed that some of the transactions were made to his personal bank account or the bank accounts of his associates, including his brother-in-law Aurobindo Roy Burman. He further said that out of Rs 3.25 crore, Rs 3 crore was handed over to Gopal Dalapati, a middleman, after deducting a commission of Rs 25 lakh. Some of the amount was transferred to the bank account of Armaan Trading, an entity run by Dalapati. Kuntal claimed to have been informed by Dalapati that this money was to be handed over to Partha through his personal secretaries Sukanta Acharya, alias Acharjee and Prabir Banerjee and two associates Partha Sarkar, a Kolkata civic body councillor, and Deepak Sarkar.

The chargesheet quotes Kuntal having shared an incident at Taj Hotel (formerly known as Swissotel) in Kolkata where Rs 45 lakh in cash was handed over to Prabir Banerjee by him and Dalapati in 2017 or 2018.

Kuntal further revealed that he also paid more than Rs. 1.5 crore in cash in 2018 to Deepak Sarkar who used to sit in the Behala office of the then education minister, the agency said.

Also, the ED has named education secretary Manish Jain and the then two personal secretaries of Partha Chatterjee besides Partha Sarkar in the teachers’ recruitment scam case.

This is the first time the four — including Chatterjee’s then personal secretaries Sukanta Acharya and Prabir Banerjee — have been named in the chargesheet.

The supplementary chargesheet says, “The interview process was conducted for the sole purpose to extort money from the candidates. The entire process was held under the supervision of the then education minister Partha Chatterjee. Manish Jain (the then principal secretary to the education minister), Sukanta Acharya, Prabir Banerjee and Kuntal Ghosh have admitted the aforesaid facts in statements recorded under section 50 of the PMLA.”

When contacted, education secretary Manish Jain said, “I have learnt from media reports that a person whom I do not know has taken my name. I want to clarify that the then minister never discussed such matters with me and nor did he ask me to do any wrong thing. However, I have full trust in the investigating agencies.”

Partha Sarkar said, “I have no idea about these allegations. But if I am summoned, I will appear before the ED and cooperate.”

Sukanta Acharya and Prabir Banerjee could not be reached for their comments.