In a major development, the CBI on Monday arrested North Bengal University vice chancellor Subires Bhattacharyya in connection with the assistant teachers’ recruitment scam in West Bengal in 2016.
The North Bengal University is based in Shiv Mandir area of well known commercial hub Siliguri.
Bhattacharyya is former chairperson of the West Bengal Central School Service Commission, which has hit headlines for wrong reasons in the recent past.
Bhattarcharyya was called for questioning at the CBI office in Kolkata.
Officials said he was “not cooperating” with the agency and hence was taken into custody.
Bhattacharyya was the chairman of the high-powered Commission between 2014 and 2018.
The CBI had earlier arrested former state minister and Trinamool Congress strongman Partha Chatterjee, his relative Prasanna Roy, education department officials S P Sinha and Ashok Saha, and former West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) president Kalyanmoy Ganguly.
Arpita Mukherjee, a close associate of Partha Chatterjee and an actress who had done minor roles in a few Bengali and Odiya films, was also arrested.
The SSC Scam is an alleged paper leak scandal which was first reported by sections of media in 2018.
The alleged teacher-job scam began in 2014 when the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) issued a notification for the appointment of teachers in state-run schools in West Bengal.
The recruitment process began in 2016 when Partha Chatterjee was the minister-in-charge of higher education and school education department.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached properties worth Rs 48.22 crore linked to West Bengal SSC scam accused Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee.
