The president and deputy secretary of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education presented themselves at the CBI office at Nizam Palace following a court order
earlier in the day to appear before officers of the agency by 6pm.
On Wednesday morning, Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of Calcutta High Court directed board president Goutam Paul and deputy secretary Partha Karmakar to appear before CBI investigators by 6pm.
The judge asked the central agency to find out if they were trying to mislead the court by submitting a printed copy, instead of the digitised copy, of the OMR sheets used in the 2014 Teachers’ Eligibility Test (TET).
“During the hearing of some of the cases related to the 2014 TET, this court felt that the present board officials had submitted a fresh printed copy in place of the digitised copy of the OMR sheets prepared by Basu Roy and Company,” the judge said.
Then the judge ordered “immediate interrogation of the present board president and secretary” and issued the order.
Basu Roy and Company is suspected to have been appointed by the former president of the state primary education board, Manik Bhattacharya, who is in custody in connection with alleged irregularities in recruitments in government-aided schools, to prepare the OMR sheets for the TET.
The judge said: “Some of the present members of the board are close to Bhattacharya. I think they are trying to shield his crime and that is why they are trying to mislead the court and investigators by supplying printed copies of OMR sheets in place of the digitised copy.”
Bhattacharya was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in October last year.
Both Paul and Karmakar reached Nizam Palace a few minutes before the deadline set by the court — 6pm. They came out of the CBI office around 11 pm.