On August 25, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA Jiban Krishna Saha from his residence in Andi, Murshidabad. The Burwan constituency legislator was taken into custody following a raid that lasted over five hours, conducted as part of the ongoing investigation into the School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment scam.
ED officials stated that Saha was uncooperative during the search. In an apparent attempt to evade the authorities, he allegedly jumped over a wall and tossed his mobile phone into nearby bushes. The phone was later recovered by investigators. This is not the first time the MLA has attempted to destroy or hide evidence. During a CBI raid in 2023, Saha had reportedly thrown two mobile phones into a pond in a similar effort to obstruct the investigation.
TMC MLA Jiban Krishna Saha’s clownish Bollywood-style escape, leaping over walls and throwing his phone into a pond to dodge the ED, is nothing but a flop scene directed by Mamata Banerjee herself!
•Every major scandal in the state bears the unmistakable fingerprints of Mamata… pic.twitter.com/3u4FbOxMZN
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) August 25, 2025
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT cell chief Amit Malviya also weighed in on the incident. In a post on X, Malviya remarked, “TMC MLA Jiban Krishna Saha’s dramatic, Bollywood-style escape—jumping over walls and hurling his phone into a pond to evade the ED—is nothing more than a failed scene scripted by Mamata Banerjee herself!”
Raids extended to relatives’ homes
The Enforcement Directorate also conducted searches at the residences of Jiban Krishna Saha’s relatives as part of the ongoing investigation. Raids were carried out at his in-laws’ house in Raghunathganj, Murshidabad, as well as at the home of Maya Saha, a Trinamool councillor from Ward 9 of the Sainthia municipality in Birbhum. Maya Saha, who is reportedly Saha’s maternal aunt, stated that she fully cooperated with officials and has been asked to appear before the ED on August 28.
In a related development, ED teams also searched the residence of the in-laws of Prasanna Roy in Purulia. Roy, who is currently in jail, is believed to have acted as a “middleman” in the SSC recruitment scam. The agency had previously seized multiple properties linked to him. Allegations have also surfaced that three of his sisters-in-law secured jobs as primary school teachers in recent years, further deepening suspicion around his involvement in the scam.
In addition, ED officials searched the residence of a bank employee in Andi Mahish village, Murshidabad, indicating that the scope of the investigation is widening. The SSC recruitment scam has already resulted in multiple arrests, and the latest developments indicate that investigators are now expanding their probe across various parts of West Bengal.
Bengal SSC Scam
The West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam is considered one of the largest of its kind, unfolding under the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government.
The recruitment process, held in 2016, aimed to fill vacancies for Assistant Teachers in Classes 9 to 12, along with non-teaching staff in Group C and D categories. It involved written examinations followed by interviews or personality tests.
To handle the evaluation, WBSSC had engaged a private firm, Nysa Communications, to scan the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets and process the results—a move that reportedly facilitated the manipulation of scores and execution of the scam.
Right from the beginning, the selection process was marred by a glaring lack of transparency. The commission failed to publish a consolidated list of candidates along with their scores, both during the initial and final stages of recruitment, raising serious concerns about the integrity of the process.
No age relaxations were provided during the recruitment process, violating established norms and triggering a wave of legal challenges. The first writ petition was filed in 2016 by Baishakhi Bhattacharyya, marking the beginning of a prolonged legal battle against the WBSSC.
By 2021, numerous irregularities had surfaced in the recruitment of 25,753 individuals for the posts of Assistant Teachers and non-teaching staff, further exposing the scale and depth of the scam.
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