Government of West Bengal lead by Mamata Banerjee is under pressure as minister Partha Chatterjee is arrested by Enforcement Directorate for state School Service Commission teacher recruitment scam. Raids carried out on several locations by Enforcement Directorate and they had recovered lots of cash and gold. Not only teacher recruitment scam by Partha Chatterjee, there are several such allegations of corruption on Government of West Bengal on its previous and present term. Political killings of opposition party members were also witnessed in the state.
School Service Commission Teacher Recruitment Scam
Enforcement Directorate had carried out raids and search operations in different locations in West Bengal including state education minister Partha Chatterjee’s residence for irregularities in recruitment for teaching and non-teaching positions of government schools. ED had carried out their operation in 13 different locations.
Places of other ministers like Minister of State for Education Paresh C Adhikary and MLA Manik Bhattacharya were also searched. Arpita Mukherjee is one of the close aid of Partha Chaterjee, ED recovered lots of cash and gold from her house. On the first raid Enforcement Directorate recovered 20 crores of cash. The second raid was carried out in Arpita Mukherjee’s Belgharia apartment. ED recovered 30 crore cash, gold bars and jewelry from the apartment.
Central Bureau of Investigation was investigating on the cases of irregularities in recruitment in state run schools on Group C & D positions and enforcement Directorate was looking after the money laundering part. Partha Chatterjee was education minister during the tenure 2014-2021, when the scam took place.
The advertisement for recruitment was out by 2014 and recruitment started on 2016. Later, some candidates filed petition mentioning irregularities in recruitment process like some candidate got less marks but got high rank in merit list and some candidates who have low rank in merit list received appointment letters.
Calcutta High Court was looking after the appointment of 269 teachers in state run primary schools. The allegation was that, the candidates haven’t passed in the examination but still they had received appointment letter for the job. Chairperson of West Bengal Board of Primary Education Manik Bhattacharya was removed from his position with court orders. Justice Gangopadhyay of Calcutta High Court, had instructed CBI to investigate into the appointments of 269 primary school teachers in State run primary schools. A Special Investigation Team was setup for the investigation of irregularities in recruitment of teaching and non-teaching positions in government run schools in West Bengal.
CBI during their investigation had found that question papers and the answer keys were deliberately designed very doubtfully and it can easily confuse eligible candidate. Even some candidates haven’t passed the examination but got appointment as teacher in primary schools. There are candidates who had submitted blank sheet and only written their personal details in exam papers, got appointment as Assistant Teacher in primary school.
Who is Partha Chatterjee?
Partha Chatterjee was former education minister in West Bengal government. He is a graduate in economics and hold an MBA from IISWBM. Later he became Member of Legislative Assembly from Behala Paschim in 2001. He was in charge of several ministries in Government of West Bengal like Commerce and Industry, Public Enterprises, Information Technology and Parliamentary affairs. In 2016 he got responsibility of Higher Education and School Education Department.
Previous Scams in West Bengal under Mamata Banerjee Government
Narada Bribery case
It is a sting operation carried out by Narada News and its founder Mathew Samuel. They had released a video after the sting operation. On that particular video, it can be seen that state ministers were taking money openly for favoring a company named Impex Consultancy Solutions. Several ministers of Government of West Bengal were arrested for this case like Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee, MLA Madan Mitra etc.
Irregularities in Amphan Cyclone Relief
Comptroller and Auditor General of India found large scale irregularities in distribution of Rs.2,000 crore for construction of houses for super cyclone Amphan affected people. Despite of Calcutta High Courts order to audit the relief amount of distribution, the CAG faced non-cooperation from the officials and local leaders. It was prominent that the beneficiary selection was not properly done and the distribution of money was done by unfair way. People got paid for their house building even though their claim was been rejected for no damage.
Cut-Money Scandal
Cut money is unofficial, unauthorized and undocumented commission received by political workers to get local level government schemes and projects approved. This means they will cut some money as commission form the total money provided by government for welfare of people. Like for example, if government will provide hundred rupees for implementation of any scheme then the elected representatives or other political authority will take twenty-five rupees to get the money released to the beneficiary account. This cut money is shared from lower level to upper level of the system.
Sarada Chit Fund Scam
Sarada Chit fund is a major financial scandal by Sarada Group. They were running collective investment schemes popularly known as chit fund. They had raised nearly 200 to 300 billion rupees from 1.7 million depositors across the state. They had collapsed in April 2013. CBI had conducted an investigation of the entire operations of Sarada Group. Several prominent personalities were arrested by CBI including Member of Parliament Kunal Ghosh and Srinjoy Bose of Trinamool congress. After investigation involvement of sports and Transport minister Madan Mitra was also discovered. This chit fund scam misleaded and took money from people of several other states like Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Tripura, Assam etc.
Conclusion
We had witnessed killings and violence in Panchayat polls in West Bengal. Corruption and killings are two parts of West Bengal politics for many years. It still exists in local level and village level politics. But the people of the state have to become aware to restore the lost glory of Bengal.
