The Supreme Court has granted some relief to Trinamool Congress legislator Manik Bhattacharya in the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) scam case. The Apex Court has extended his shield from arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) up until Friday, September 30.
This came just a couple of hours after the Calcutta High Court ordered Bhattacharya to appear before the CBI and said that he may be arrested if he doesn't cooperate with the investigation. While the SC protects Bhattacharya from arrest, he will still have to present himself before the CBI in the inquiry into the multi-crore primary teachers' recruitment scam in West Bengal, reported IANS.
The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday, September 27, had ordered the CBI to find out why and how optical mark recognition (OMR) sheets in the examination for recruitment of primary teachers in 2014 had been tampered with and destroyed while Bhattacharya was the president of the WBBPE. It is alleged that a total of 20.90 lakh candidates appeared for the written examination in 2014, out of which as many as 12 lakh OMR sheets were tampered with and destroyed, paving the way for recruitment irregularities.
As per the orders of the Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court, Bhattacharya will have to appear before the CBI office in Kolkata to face questioning, although he will not be arrested at least until Friday
