The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday arrested TMC MLA Manik Bhattacharya in connection with a teachers’ recruitment scam.
Bhattacharya was arrested by the central agency after questioning him overnight in connection with the case. He is the former chairman of the state primary education board and was removed from his post by the Calcutta High Court in June. He is the second high-profile TMC MLA to be arrested after Partha Chatterjee in connection with the teachers’ recruitment scam.
Recruitment scam: Illegally appointed teachers were in service for years. The School Selection Commission (SSC) scam in West Bengal came to the national limelight after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) unearthed Rs 21 crore 90 lakh in hard cash from Arpita Mukherjee’s residence. Arpita Mukherjee is believed to be a close confidante of Partha Chatterjee, a trusted lieutenant of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, a former state education minister, and the current minister of commerce and industries. He is under arrest, as is Mukherjee. The matter is being probed by the ED as well as the Central Bureau Of Investigation (CBI).
After the building of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in the state in 2011, a serious breach in protocol was noticed in the Regional Level Selection Test (RLST) of 2012 — a teacher recruitment process, when ranks, according to the combined merit panel, were jumped and lower ranked candidates were recruited as teachers. Many candidates who were at the receiving end of the selection board’s “irregularity” went to court. As of now, related litigations are still pending in Supreme Court.
In the State Level Selection Test (SLST) of 2016 — which recruits teachers for classes 9, 10, 11, and 12, similar irregularities were noticed after Minister Paresh Adikary’s daughter, Ankita Adhikary, managed to get appointed as a government teacher in Cooch Behar. She was later convicted by a court and her job was terminated. She was also told to return the entire salary that she received in the 41 months that she was on job.
In the upper primary section, during the start of the recruitment process, many cases were filed alleging that non-trained candidates got a preference for jobs and many out-of-turn candidates were given appointments. On December 11, 2019, the Calcutta High Court, in view of the malpractices, ordered the cancellation of the merit list and a halt to the recruitment process.
However, after the recruitment process restarted in 2016, things did not change as various lowly placed candidates were placed on the merit list and were recruited anyway.
The non-teaching staff recruitment panel started the process of filling up forms from August 10 to 31, 2016. On May 4, 2019, the SSC intimated to the candidates that the recruitment process was over. Interestingly, after this announcement was made, hundreds of off-panel candidates were hired. At first 25, then 542 people’s salaries were terminated by the Calcutta HC after it found large-scale irregularities in the recruitment process.
The last SSC teachers’ recruitment — SLST for classes 9 and 10 — was held on November 27, 2016 and the SLST for classes 11 and 12, was held on December 4, 2016. The Upper Primary Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) exam was last held on August 16, 2015. However, since then, the teacher recruitment process for upper primary school has been stopped in the state.
It was alleged that during the entire recruitment process, a section of the would-be teachers used to pay hefty sums to the TMC leadership, which used to be channelized to Partha Chatterjee, the then Education Minister.
The Calcutta High Court constituted a Committee that got wide evidence of irregularities and ordered the removal of both Ganguly and Manik Bhattacharya from the post of the Chairman of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education and the West Bengal Primary Teaching Council, respectively.
It is alleged that during the pandemic-induced lockdown, when everything was closed down, several candidates gave ‘cut money’, which was channelized to then education minister Partha Chatterjee, and they were recruited illegally.
After TMC came to power in the state, the primary teachers’ recruitment process was tainted by “nepotism” and Chatterjee, after becoming education minister in 2013, took this chance to centralize the whole process. A Bill was passed in the Assembly that effectively centralized power. It wrested power with the Primary Teaching Council for the recruitment of primary teachers and the power to recruit upper primary teachers was given to the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education, at whose helm was the minister himself.
On May 20 this year, Chatterjee also appeared for CBI interrogation for certain irregularities during his tenure. Interestingly, the lawyers aligned with TMC created an uproar in the HC to pressure judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay.
During the interrogation, CBI interrogated Chatterjee over the constitution of the Appointment Vigil Committee. Chatterjee told the investigative agency that only those who were appointed as teachers could tell how they were selected.
As per reports, it has been alleged that the modus operandi of the whole process revolved around Sinha, who used to send false recommendation papers to SSC chairperson Kalyanmoy Ganguly, who was assigned with preparing false appointment letters to be sent to SSC head offices and then handed over to the candidates. Another person whose role has been highlighted is Samarjeet Acharya, tasked with scanning the false appointment letters.