The high court rejected the bail petition of former education minister Partha Chatterjee and four former officials in connection with the alleged irregularities in recruitments in state-aided schools on the ground that the allegations are “very serious”.

Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty also said that the charges, if proved, could “jeopardise the credibility of the education system of the State”.

The judge said in his order: “The allegations against the petitioners are very serious in nature, which are reflected from the excerpts of the documents on record. The offences alleged, if proved, may jeopardise the credibility of the education system of the State. Although ‘bail is the rule and jail is an exception’ is well established in our jurisprudence, we have to measure competing forces present in facts and circumstances of each case before enlarging a person on bail.”

Chatterjee and the former officials — Subires Bhattacharyya, Kalyanmoy Ganguly, Shanti Prasad Sinha and Ashok Das — had first moved the bail plea before the division bench of Justices Arijit Banerjee and Apurba Sinha Ray.

Justice Banerjee, the senior judge on the division bench, was in favour of granting bail to the petitioners mainly on the ground that the accused had already spent over two years in jail and they were not in a position to influence anyone as they no longer held any official position.

Justice Sinha Ray disagreed and said “considering the gravity of the crime, the CBI should get more time to conduct a free investigation” and that the state had withheld its consent to the CBI to prosecute the former officials.

The matter was referred to Justice Chakraborty.

Senior lawyers Shekhar Basu, Milan Mukherjee and Sandipan Ganguly represented the accused. The defence lawyers had on multiple occasions submitted that their clients were no longer in a position to influence the probe.

Justice Chakraborty, upholding the views of Justice Sinha Ray, said one of the accused, Ganguly, was granted bail in another case about a year after papers were forwarded by the CBI to the chief secretary seeking sanction.

He said: “Even after four months... when sanction was still awaited, the court passed the order… directing the chief secretary to submit a report with regard to the timeframe within which he proposed to take a decision. In spite of repeated orders... no decision was taken and as such considering the totality of the circumstances, Sinha Ray, J, rightly refused to exercise discretion.”