West Bengal school job scam: ED conducts raids as TMC leader questioned

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday, May 20, conducted a raid at the residence of Sujay Krishna Bhadra in connection with the West Bengal school teacher recruitment scam. An official of the central agency said that Bhadra is considered to be close to an accused TMC top brass.

The ED is also conducting searches in several other locations in the state. As the search operations were conducted, TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee appeared before the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) Kolkata office for questioning, as mentioned in a report by IANS.

Banerjee's name surfaced in the case after another accused TMC leader Kuntal Ghosh submitted letters to a local police station and to the judge of a special CBI court, accusing central agencies of putting pressure on him to name the general secretary in the case. Meanwhile, Banerjee's counsels have filed a special leave petition at the Supreme Court, challenging the decision of the Calcutta High Court's single-judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha giving a go-ahead to central agencies to question him.

On Saturday morning, Banerjee himself gave a letter to the CBI informing about the special leave petition in the apex court. Banerjee is being questioned by a three-member interrogation team of the CBI's anti-corruption branch (ACB), one each in the rank of superintendent, deputy superintendent and inspector. While the main questioning is being done by the superintendent and deputy superintendent, the inspector will be mainly responsible for noting down the proceedings, as per a report by IANS.