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CBI raids TMC legislator Tapas Saha in bribe-for-jobs case, questions him
A team of CBI officers went to TMC legislator Tapas Saha’s house in Nadia district of West Bengal and has started scrutinising the documents at home and his office
KOLKATA: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday raided the home of Tapas Saha, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislator from Tehatta in Nadia district, to probe his alleged role in the bribe-for-job case in the West Bengal school education department, officials of the federal agency said.
Accompanied by central paramilitary force personnel, a CBI team went to Saha’s home on Friday afternoon and started scrutiny of files and documents kept at his office located on the same premises. The MLA’s mobile phone was also seized. CBI officials said Tapas Saha was also being questioned.
He is the fourth TMC legislator to face a probe in the school recruitment scam.
Former education minister Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee were arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in July 2022 in a parallel money laundering probe. Chatterjee was dropped from the cabinet and suspended from TMC by chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Manik Bhattacharya, the TMC legislator from Nadia district’s Palashipara seat who was earlier president of the primary education board, was arrested by ED in October 2022.
Jiban Krishna Saha, the Burwan legislator from Murshidabad district, was arrested by CBI on April 17 after a 72-hour search at his residence. A pond located next to the house was drained by CBI to recover two mobile phones that the MLA allegedly threw in the water when the raid started.
Unlike these three MLAs whose names came up during investigation by the federal agencies, the Bengal government started investigations against Tapas Saha after some Nadia residents complained to TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s office.
The state’s anti-corruption branch was investigating the case. On April 18, Calcutta high court’s justice Rajasekhar Mantha ordered CBI to take over the investigation on a petition which alleged that the MLA’s associates not only collected bribes for jobs in the state-run schools but the fire services and police departments as well.
The TMC has not reacted to Friday’s CBI raid.
“We have nothing to say on this issue,” said TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh.
Rahul Sinha, former Bengal unit president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said: “Saha is one of the pawns in the recruitment racket. His job was to raise money. The main players in the scam are yet to be exposed.”
In May 2022, Calcutta high court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay ordered the CBI to probe the appointment of non-teaching staff (Group C and D) and teaching staff by the West Bengal School Service Commission and West Bengal Board of Secondary Education between 2014 and 2021. The appointees allegedly paid bribes in the range of ₹5-15 lakh to get jobs despite failing the selection tests.
In its first charge sheet filed on September 19 last year, ED said it traced cash, jewellery and immovable property worth ₹103.10 crore linked to Partha Chatterjee and Arpita Mukherjee.
