On May 22, the Calcutta High Court refused to grant interim relief against the single judge’s order dated April 21, which directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to probe the alleged Municipality Recruitment Scam.
The petitioner’s counsel Advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya submitted before the Calcutta High Court that “the link between the teacher recruitment scam and the recruitment in the municipalities has been established as such, all the recruitment scams of like nature must be brought under the investigation of common agencies.”
The Calcutta High Court has directed the ED “to produce materials in support of the allegation made in paragraph 4 of its application on the next date of hearing.”
The Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government had moved the Calcutta High Court after Justice Amrita Sinha dismissed the state government’s review petition challenging the April 21 order on May 12. The Calcutta High Court’s vacation bench has now listed the case for hearing on June 6 before the regular bench.
Background
On May 12, the Calcutta High Court dismissed the West Bengal government’s review petition against transferring the probe in West Bengal Municipality Recruitment Scam to CBI. “The Court is convinced that in the facts and circumstances of the instant case, the petition for review must fail and is, accordingly, dismissed,” said the Calcutta High Court.
The Calcutta High Court said, “The Court is of the opinion that, the State including its departments, ought to cooperate with the investigating agencies and ensure that the investigation that is continuing reaches a logical conclusion at the earliest, so that the offenders can be booked and appropriately dealt with in accordance with law.”
“The same will in return ensure to the advantage of the State authorities in identifying the persons involved in the racket of job in-lieu-of cash and the administration of the State may continue smoothly. The State authorities ought to actively assist the investigating authorities currently handling the matter, so as to free the State from the illegalities in the process of recruitment in various departments of the State,” the Calcutta High Court added.
The court noted, “No prejudice has been caused to the State by directing the CBI and ED to investigate the matter as the aforesaid investigating authorities are already investigating the scam relating to recruitment in educational institutions and the investigation has proceeded to a considerable extent. There ought not to be separate investigating authorities for investigating the connected offence which has come to light in course of the investigation.”
“As several persons involved in the recruitment scam relating to schools are also involved in the recruitment scam in connection with municipalities and the proceeds of crime are intermingling with each other, there is no scope to segregate the investigation and the investigation is liable to be proceeded by the agency/agencies investigating the same,” added the Calcutta High Court.
“The genesis of the scam was revealed while dealing with education matters relating to primary schools. In the course of investigation of the scam in connection with schools, the scam relating to recruitment in municipalities was unearthed. To conclude the investigation of the original scam, the scam relating to municipalities is also required to be taken note of and investigated accordingly,” the court noted.
The court noted that an “investigation is under process involving highly influential individuals, politicians, ministers of the ruling party, popular film stars etc. and the amount of cash, documents/electronic evidences recovered at the time of investigation clearly implies that there are every chances of destroying/removing/tampering the evidences, threatening/terrorising the witnesses which may interfere with the process of investigation.”
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