Court told CBI: Please accept, teachers cannot investigate scam in time

Kolkata (IANS) | A special CBI court here on Thursday pulled up the agency team probing the multi-crore scam in the recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in West Bengal for slow pace of investigation. The special court judge asked the Central Bureau of Investigation officials to accept if they could not probe the matter in time.

Hearing the bail plea of former education minister and Trinamool Congress general secretary Partha Chatterjee, the judge on Thursday told the central agency officials and his lawyer, “You better go to the Calcutta High Court and inform them that the investigation is beyond your purview.” It’s a matter of. It seems that the investigation is beyond your capability.”

The judge also asked the agency to fix a time frame for completing the probe process. The reply of the CBI counsel that the investigation process was getting delayed in view of the involvement of a large number of people in the scam further irked the judge.

The judge said, “How long will you keep playing the same record? The investigation process has to be completed, even if the involvement is in thousands.”

Moving the bail plea on behalf of Chatterjee, his counsel argued that the CBI is projecting his client as the mastermind of the scam despite his name not being mentioned in the FIR. “The central probe agency should explain why they are projecting my client as the mastermind,” argued the lawyer.

Ultimately, however, despite pulling up the CBI, the judge rejected Chatterjee’s bail plea and extended his judicial custody till April 14.

–IANS