The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday granted bail on strict conditions to former Trinamool Congress youth leader Kuntal Ghosh, one of the prime accused in an Enforcement Directorate case connected to the West Bengal primary school recruitment scam.

Ghosh, who was arrested by the central agency on January 21, 2023 and is currently lodged in jail, will, however, not be set free since a corresponding case by the CBI still remains pending before the court.

Following the completion of Kuntal Ghosh's bail petition hearing, Justice Suvra Ghosh ordered conditional bail for the accused upon furnishing a bond of Rs 10 lakh. The accused has been directed to surrendered his passport to the trial court and make mandatory appearance before that court during case hearings.

The court also directed the accused to not tamper with evidence or intimidate witnesses in any manner whatsoever and asked him to provide his mobile phone number to the trial court. He was directed to not change his number without prior intimation to the court.

Kuntal, perceived to be a close associate of former TMC MLA Manik Bhattacharya who was unceremoniously removed from his position as the president of the state primary education board after the recruitment irregularities came to light and his subsequent arrest by the ED in October 2022, was accused of extracting money from teachers who failed to qualify the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) in legitimate manner in return for jobs in schools.

Tapas Mondal, another arrested accused in the case, had claimed in his statement before the investigators that Kuntal had received close to Rs 20 crore from him as proceeds of the crime.

Kuntal is accused of being actively involved in the process of illegal selection of candidates in TET- 2014 as well as appointment of candidates as primary teachers, upper primary teachers, assistant teachers for class 9 to 12 and Group-D staff under the West Bengal government in lieu of which he collected money from the candidates.

While Mondal, who was arrested by the CBI in February 2023 and was granted bail in a Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case in March 2024, finally secured his release in October this year after spending nearly 600 days in jail, Bhattacharya was also released on bail by Justice Ghosh in September on the grounds that the accused has no criminal antecedents.

Kuntal moved his bail application before the single bench after his prayer before the Supreme Court was sent back to the high court and cited the release of co-accused Bhattacharya and Mondal as grounds for his own bail which the ED had opposed on grounds of Ghosh allegedly continuing to receive scam money in his account even after his arrest.

Interestingly, in a related matter, a two-judge Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday remained undecided on a bail petition moved by former state education minister Partha Chatterjee and four other high-profile accused indicted by the CBI in the state School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment scam case following a split verdict by two judges of the Bench.

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