The CBI on Monday submitted in Calcutta High Court electronic evidence and documents related to the probe into alleged irregularities in the recruitment of teachers for Classes IX to XII and other staff in government-aided schools.
The hard disks and documents were submitted before the special division bench of Justice Debangshu Basak and Justice Mohammad Shabbar Rashidi.
The special bench had asked the central investigation agency to submit the documents and electronic evidence that it had received from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) in Hyderabad.
The bench on Monday declined to make the documents public. It said if any party to the case wanted to see the documents, it could apply to the bench by 5pm on Tuesday.
The next hearing has been scheduled for February 12.
The CBI had started investigating the alleged irregularities following an order from Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the high court. The judge had directed the school service commission (SSC) to cancel the appointments of the teachers hired illegally and to give the jobs to deserving candidates.
The SSC and the state government moved an appeal against Justice Gangopadhyay’s order before a division bench of the high court. The division bench upheld the order.
The Supreme Court, in response to an appeal against the order, asked the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court to set up a special bench to hear the cases.
The case came up for hearing before the special bench headed by Justice Basak.
During the last hearing in January, counsel for the CBI had said the central
agency could not submit the evidence which it was supposed to get from the forensic laboratory in Hyderabad on January 29.
At this, the advocate representing the state alleged that the CBI had not submitted any evidence before the court (till then).
Counsel for the SSC had said the commission had handed all its documents and evidence to the central agency and that it had nothing else to submit in the court.
Kunal Ghosh
All India Trinamul Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh on Monday met advocate-general Kishore Datta at his high court chamber to discuss updates of the cases related to the recruitment of teachers and staff in the government-aided secondary and primary schools.
Later, Ghosh said: “The process of appointing teachers in schools is being hampered because of multiple cases lodged one after another by advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya. The genuine candidates are not getting jobs. So, I came here to know about the updates of the cases.”