Kolkata: The trial process in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)-registered cases in the alleged multi-crore West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) scam will commence at a special court in Kolkata from Friday afternoon.
Sources said the trial process will begin on Friday with the recording of statements of witnesses named in the charge sheet and supplementary charge sheets filed by the CBI in the matter.
The process of recording witness statements will start in the afternoon and will continue on Saturday as well as on Monday.
After the process of recording the statements is over, the process of arguments and counterarguments in the cases by the counsels of different parties will start.
During the last ten days, the process of charge-framing in the different cases related to the WBSSC recruitment irregularities scam had been completed at the special court, and hence, the trial process in those cases will begin now.
The cases in which the trial process begins include the irregularities in the recruitment of secondary, higher secondary, and upper primary teachers, as well as non-teaching staff in Group-C and Group-D categories in state-run schools. The recruitments for all these categories were done by the WBSSC.
Earlier this year, a division bench of the Supreme Court cancelled WBSSC’s entire 2016 panel of 25,753 school jobs on the grounds that it was impossible to segregate the “untainted” candidates, that is, those who got jobs by merit, from the “tainted” candidates, that is, those who got jobs against money.
Earlier this month, the written examination for fresh recruitment to posts for secondary and high secondary teachers lying vacant following the Supreme Court order was conducted.
Two central agencies, named CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED), have been conducting parallel probes into the different cases of the alleged WBSSC recruitment scam. Both agencies have identified former West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General, Partha Chatterjee, as the principal mastermind in all these cases.
There is another aspect in the entire ambit of the alleged multi-crore cash-for-school job case, which is regarding irregularities in the recruitment of primary teachers in state-run schools, the recruitments for which are being done by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE). However, it is not quite clear when the procedures for charge-framing in the cases relating to primary teachers’ recruitment irregularities will be completed, and the trial process in the matter will start.
Partha Chatterjee has also been identified as the principal mastermind in all the cases relating to the alleged primary teachers recruitment irregularities scam as well.
(IANS)
