Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of Calcutta High Court handed over the case of alleged corruption in the appointment of 25 Group-D school employees by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education and School Service Commission to the CBI for probe on Monday.
The two wings of the state government on Thursday presented before the court contrasting claims about the appointment of 25 Group-D employees and tried to pass the responsibility of the appointments on the other.
The commission, in an affidavit, said it had not recommended names to the board for appointments after the expiry of a panel drawn up in 2016.
The board’s counsel claimed that his client had given appointments on receiving recommendations from the commission.
Justice Gangopadhyay had asked both the SSC and the board to file separate affidavits clearing their stands.
The judge asked the CBI director to constitute a probe committee, head of which should not be below the rank of a joint director. The committee will have to place its report by December 21.
The judge asked the CBI to ensure that the investigation should be impartial.
This part of the order came after the state government’s lawyers strongly opposed the CBI probe and requested the judge to appoint three former judges to probe the allegations instead.
Appearing for the state, advocate-general S.N. Mukherjee argued that the government had a very bad experience about the role of the CBI, which is now completely controlled by the central government. The advocate-general referred to an earlier probe into alleged post-poll violence to buttress his point. But the judge stuck to his decision.
Four different petitions had been filed before the court alleging that at least 25 persons were given appointments in 2019 after the expiry of a panel drawn up in 2016.
During hearing of the case on Thursday, the counsel appearing of the petitioners, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, claimed that at least 500 other candidates were given appointment in Group-D posts illegally.
The judge asked the petitioners to find out whereabouts of those 500 candidates and make them parties to the case.