Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of Calcutta High Court on Wednesday criticised the CBI for the third consecutive day for its alleged failure to the probe complaints of irregularities in school recruitments.
After going through the case diary in connection with the 2014 TET (teachers’ eligibility test) that the CBI had submitted on Tuesday, Justice Gangopadhyay said in the court on Wednesday: “The investigating agency is not conducting the probe in the right direction. It is showing its unwillingness to conduct the probe properly.”
The judge directed CBI director Praveen Sood to virtually appear before his court on October 4.
“The court wants to know what problems the agency is facing in conducting the probe properly,” the judge said.
In his courtroom on Monday and Tuesday, Justice Gangopadhyay had questioned the allegedly slow progress of the investigation by the central agency and wondered whether the agency had a nexus with the arrested former president of the state primary education board, Manik Bhattacharya.
Bhattacharya is also a Trinamul Congress MLA.
The judge said a CBI officer who was not part of the court-appointed special investigation team interrogated the accused.
“Till date, only four persons were found to have admitted before the central agency to have got jobs against payment of money,” Justice Gangopadhyay said.
He further pulled up the CBI, saying: “The agency (CBI) is trying to fool common people. Previously, common people had faith in a CBI investigation. (But) Now the people laugh at it.”
Justice Gangopadhyay said more than a year had passed since the court formed the SIT on August 27, 2022. “But what is the actual progress of the investigation?” he asked.
Justice Gangopadhyay said it was clear “like water” that jobs were given against money. “Then why are the officers not in a position to prove the guilt of the accused persons?” he asked.
The CBI counsel informed the court that after receiving an order from the judge on Tuesday, the agency had summoned Kaushik Majhi, one of the partners of Basu Roy and Company, which manufactured the OMR sheets for the TET, and one of its employees, Partha Sen, to its office for questioning on Wednesday.
The judge said the matter will be heard again on October 4.