The Bidhannagar police have started a case under the prevention of corruption act against former education minister Partha Chatterjee and others in connection with alleged irregularities in the regularisation of the service of volunteer teachers in schools in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administrator (GTA) area.
The others named as accused in the case, which the Bidhannagar commissionerate started on Wednesday, are former GTA administrator Binay Tamang, two Trinamul youth leaders and a number of people attached to the education department.
An officer in the commissionerate said the case was registered based on a complaint filed by Bhupal Chandra Halder, a deputy secretary in the state school education department, on Wednesday.
The move came a day after Justice Biswajit Basu of Calcutta High Court instructed the CBI to start a suo motu case after receiving several letters alleging that the GTA and Tamang, with the assistance of Chatterjee, had appointed 700 to 1,000 employees for schools and civic bodies without following the due process.
The commissionerate started the case under Sections 186, 506 and 7A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The charges deal with the offence of voluntarily obstructing a public servant from discharging duty, criminal intimidation and corruption.
Sources said Chatterjee, Tamang, district inspector of school (Darjeeling) Pran Gobinda Sarkar, Trinamul Congress Chhatra Parishad leaders Trinankur Bhattacharya and Prantik Chakraborty and Bubai Bose, a councillor of Habra Municipality who is also known for his proximity to minister Jyotipriya Mallick, were among those named in the complaint.
“It has been alleged that the service of volunteer teachers in government-aided schools in the GTA area was regularised bypassing the mandatory steps,” a police officer said.
A complaint mentions that the money from the allegedly irregular recruitments was transported in a car used by a student leader of Trinamul, with the help of a councillor in North 24-Parganas, the officer said.
The complaint, lodged by a four-member committee set up by the school education department to look into the alleged irregularities in the regularisation of volunteer teachers in government-aided schools, also mentions the mobile numbers which were reportedly used to send to a minister lists of candidates who were to be appointed, the officer said.
“The four-member committee called the local district inspector of schools. It was found during the inquiry that certain formalities for the regularisation of volunteer teachers were not followed under the instructions of Chatterjee and Tamang,” said a senior official in the school education department.
According to the official, the committee informed the high court about its findings and the court asked it to lodge a complaint.
Sources said the state police had received three such complaint letters but apparently no action was taken.
The court on Tuesday instructed the CBI to take over the matter and initiate a probe.
All three letters — which mention the nature of the alleged offence of each accused — have been handed over to the CBI.
A senior Trinamul leader said whatever has to be said on the issue would be said by chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her second-in-command Abhishek Banerjee, who are scheduled to visit north Bengal on Friday.