Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday summoned top officials of two municipalities from two districts of West Bengal for interrogation.
The CBI is probing the multi-crore cash-for-municipalities job case in the state.
Sources said, the chief executives of Halisahar Municipality in North 24 Parganas district and Ranaghat Municipality in Nadia district were issued notices by the CBI on Monday and both have been asked to be present at the central agency’s Nizam Palace office in central Kolkata this week.
Sources said that the CBI officials have tracked specific evidence regarding several irregular recruitments made in both these municipalities against hefty cash payments.
These illegal recruitments were mainly made for the post of drivers, helpers, health workers and cleaning assistants.
Besides Halisahar and Ranaghat, the other municipalities that are under the scanner of the CBI officials are Panihati, South Dum Dum and North Dum Dum in North 24 Parganas district and Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas district among others.
Sources added that the names of the two executives surfaced during the interrogation of an accused in the case and private promoter Ayan Sil, who is also an accused in the cash-for-school job case in West Bengal.
In fact, the officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), who are conducting parallel investigations in both the school and municipalities job case, got wind of recruitment irregularities in the different urban civic bodies while conducting raid and search operations at Sil’s residence in March 2023.
Recently, the CBI had shown Sil as well as the former West Bengal education minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee as arrested in the school job case.
Both were in judicial custody since they were arrested by the ED, first being Chatterjee in July 2022 and then Sil in March 2023.
The point that the central agency officials are trying to establish is how Sil acted as the common intermediary in the cycles of corruption both in the municipalities and school job cases involving those paying money for jobs, intermediaries like agent networks and finally the influential sections both in bureaucratic and political circles.
(IANS)
