Partha Chatterjee, the former state education minister who is now in custody, had allegedly recommended that the names of some “undeserving” candidates be included in the merit list of the 2014 Teacher Eligibility Test for primary schools, the
CBI said.

Officers from the central agency who have been scanning documents seized from the state education department’s headquarters, Bikash Bhavan, a few months
back said some of the papers revealed that Chatterjee had allegedly sent the recommendations to a senior bureaucrat in the school education department.

CBI officers said the documents were seized from a storeroom at Bikash Bhavan during a three-day search-and-seizure operation in June as part of a probe into alleged irregularities in recruitments in primary schools.

Some of these documents reveal that Chatterjee had sent a list of 752 candidates for inclusion in the merit list of the 2014 Teacher Eligibility Test, CBI officers said.

Of the 752, the names of 310 candidates were included, the officers said.

“The investigation into the alleged irregularities in recruitments in primary schools has been going on since the documents were seized and scanned. A team visited
Chatterjee at Presidency jail on Tuesday and questioned him,” said a senior CBI officer, refusing to divulge more details.

Sources said separate teams have been scanning the documents since.

Apart from the recommended list of candidates, the seized documents have thrown up the names of a few “influential people” who appear to be involved in the alleged irregularities, along with Chatterjee and others, CBI sources said.

“We will again question Chatterjee at Presidency jail soon,” an officer said.

In January, the CBI had filed four chargesheets alleging that Chatterjee was involved in irregularities in recruitment in government-aided schools at various levels.

According to the chargesheets, he was involved in alleged corruption in the recruitment of assistant teachers for Classes IX to XII as well as non-teaching staff for government-aided schools.

Two of the chargesheets dealt with the alleged irregularities in the recruitment of assistant teachers for Classes IX and X and for Classes XI and XII. A chargesheet each dealt with the allegedly illegal appointment of Group C and D staff.