Bengal school jobs scam: TMC MLA Jiban Krishna Saha arrested by CBI

Kolkata/Murshidabad, Apr 17 (PTI) Trinamool Congress MLA Jiban Krishna Saha was arrested on Monday by CBI from his residence in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district in connection with its investigation into the school jobs-for-bribes scam, sources said.

Saha, an MLA from the Burwan constituency, has been questioned by CBI officers since April 14 in connection with the case involving alleged illegal recruitments in West Bengal government-sponsored and -aided schools.

Saha was arrested this morning from his residence at Burwan by CBI officials and taken away in a convoy of vehicles with CRPF security, the sources said.

He was being taken to the investigative agency’s office in Kolkata, they said.

One of two mobile phones belonging to the MLA, which he had allegedly thrown away after the CBI officials raided his house, was fished out of a pond adjacent to his residence in Murshidabad on Sunday evening.

Saha is the third TMC MLA to be arrested in connection with the investigation by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate.

Former state minister Partha Chatterjee, who held the education portfolio between 2014 and 2021 when the irregularities in the recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in state government-sponsored and-aided schools are alleged to have taken place, and another MLA Manik Bhattacharya were arrested earlier.

Bhattacharya is a former president of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education.

The CBI and the Enforcement Directorate are investigating the case and the alleged money trail involved in it on orders of the Calcutta High Court.

The Trinamool Congress declined to comment on the arrest of the party legislator and said that the “law will take its own course”.

“We are keeping a close watch on the situation. But we don’t want to react … The law will take its own course,” TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said.

The BJP said the arrests of the TMC legislators prove that “public representatives of the ruling party in the state were involved in the corruption”.

“Saha is the third MLA to be arrested. The list of TMC leaders involved in corruption is long. These arrests show that public representatives are involved in the corruption,” BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh said.

Taking to Twitter, Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, said TMC’s public representatives acted as middlemen.

“Ruling party of WB established its parallel Tola-Mool’ (graft) Service Commission’ for selling WB State Govt jobs to the highest bidder,” Adhikari alleged in a tweet.

Reacting to the attacks on his party, the TMC spokesperson said on Twitter, “Why and how Suvendu is roaming free instead of being arrested? He is named in the Narada case. He joined BJP only to avoid actions (against him).

“Now, CBI is proactive in one direction, but allowing Suvendu to roam free. He should be arrested in Narada, Sarada cases”.