Former state secondary education board president Kalyanmoy Ganguly, who was arrested by the CBI on September 16 last year in connection with alleged irregularities in recruitments to Group C posts in government-aided schools, got conditional bail from Calcutta High Court on Wednesday.
A division bench headed by Justice Joymalya Bagchi granted Ganguly bail on two conditions.
The first condition entails that Ganguly will have to stay within the jurisdiction of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and not enter the jurisdiction of Bidhannagar and Park Street police station.
Sources in the court said that since the board is headquartered in Salt Lake’s Karunamoyee and has an office on Park Street, Ganguly has been barred from entering these areas.
The second condition is that he has to cooperate with the investigating agency.
Ganguly is the second accused in the case to get bail.
A few days ago, Prasanna Ray, who was allegedly a middleman during the appointment of Group C and D staff in secondary schools, got bail from the Supreme Court.
CBI officers alleged that Shantipada Sinha, who was chairman of the advisory committee of the school service commission (SSC), handed fake recommendation letters for appointment to Ganguly when he was the board president.
Ganguly helmed the board from 2012 to 2022.
While granting bail, Justice Bagchi held that Ganguly’s interrogation had been over and there was no need to keep him behind bars.
The CBI lawyer opposed the prayer and said Ganguly could tamper with evidence.
The bench then issued the restrictions and granted Ganguly bail.
The conditional bail was granted days after the Supreme Court had on November 10 returned all cases related to the SSC scam to Calcutta High Court, directing it to settle all alleged cash-for-jobs cases within six months by constituting a special division bench.
The Supreme Court had on November 9 given the CBI two months to complete the probe into alleged anomalies in recruitment of teachers.
A secondary board official said: “An agency cannot keep a person behind bars indefinitely when his interrogation has been completed. Now,
the apex court has set the agency a deadline to wrap up the probe. Let them comply with the deadline and start the trial.”
Sinha has moved the special CBI court for bail. The court last week rejected his bail and sent him to judicial custody till December 6.