ED seizes Rs 20 crore in teacher recruitment scam in Bengal

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has carried out simultaneous raids at the houses of around a dozen people, including two ministers, while investigating into the teacher recruitment scam in West Bengal and seized around Rs 20 crore in cash from the residence of a close associate of senior minister Partha Chatterjee.

The agency shared four photographs of piles of huge cash inside a room. At least 7-8 ED officials reached the Naktala residence of Chatterjee, the former education minister, with a few CRPF personnel keeping guard outside. They questioned him for more than 11 hours about the alleged scam. Raids were also conducted at the residence of one of Chatterjee’s close associates at Pingla in Paschim Medinipur district.

Besides, the agency carried out simultaneous raids in the houses of former advisor of the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) Shanti Prasad Sinha, ex-president of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education Kalyanmoy Ganguly and nine others.

The CBI is looking into the alleged irregularities committed in the recruitment of group-C and D staff as well as teachers in government-sponsored and aided schools on recommendations of the West Bengal School Service Commission. The ED is tracking the money trail in the scam.