SSC recruitment scam: Calcutta High Court undecided on granting bail to Partha Chatterjee, four others

Kolkata: A two-judge division bench of Calcutta High Court on Wednesday reached a split verdict on a bail petition moved by former West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee and four other high-profile accused indicted by the CBI in the state School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment scam case.

While Justice Arijit Bandyopadhyay approved the bail of all the nine accused who appealed before the Bench, Justice Apurba Sinha Roy decided against granting bail to Chatterjee and four other former education department officials — Subiresh Bhattacharya, Ashok Saha, Kalyanmoy Gangopadhyay and Shanti Prasad Sinha.

Both judges, however, agreed on granting bail to four other suspects in this case — Kaushik Ghosh, Subrata Samanta Roy, Sk Ali Imam and Chandan alias Ranjan Mondal. They were accused of acting as conduits and were slapped with charges of acting as agents and middlemen in the cash for jobs case.

The case involving the five accused where the court failed to reach a clear verdict, according to senior lawyers of the court, would now be transferred to Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam who would, in turn, assign a third Bench to take a conclusive decision in the matter.

While Chatterjee was arrested on July 23, 2022 by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the state school recruitment scam case and was later roped in by the CBI, the four department officials were subsequently arrested by the latter agency in the same case.

Chatterjee, who's lodged in jail for more than two years now, moved bail applications both before the high court and the Supreme Court on multiple occasions in the past. His applications were rejected by the court's Single Bench and Division Benches.

The former TMC leader had also moved a bail application in cases registered against him by the ED. The Bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh of Calcutta High Court had also dismissed that prayer after the hearing concluded in April this year.

Following Chatterjee's arrest in 2022, the ED recovered a staggering amount of around Rs 50 crore in cash and additional gold ornaments and foreign currencies from two Kolkata apartments owned by his 'close associate' Arpita Muhkerjee. Mukherjee is currently lodged in Presidency Correctional Home.