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Supreme Court rejects Bengal plea to stop CBI probe into municipal recruitment
The West Bengal government opposed the Calcutta high court’s order on a CBI probe into municipal recruitment, saying the high court bypassed the state government
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the West Bengal government’s plea to stop the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from investigating alleged irregularities in the recruitment of staffers in several municipalities in the state on the Calcutta high court’s orders on April 21.
The high court ordered the CBI probe after it emerged that the modus operandi followed by the suspects in the multi-crore cash-for-jobs racket in the state’s schools could have been replicated for recruitment for the municipalities.
“There is no doubt that one single company was employed to prepare OMR (optical mark recognition) sheets in both scams. We cannot then say that the second investigation is not linked with the first,” a bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said.
The bench noted that the high court acted on the basis of a status report of CBI. “The same persons accused in the teacher recruitment scam are accused in the municipality recruitment scam. What more material does the judge require at the stage of registering FIR.”
Senior lawyer Kapil Sibal appearing for the West Bengal government argued that the high court order was wrong as it “bypassed” the state government and didn’t list any reasons why the case couldn’t be probed by the state police.
“There was no material before the court to order an investigation. There is no complaint made regarding the municipal recruitment and for ordering CBI probe. Malafide must be made out against the state in carrying out the investigation. This amounts to bypassing the state machinery,” said Sibal.
Sibal said that this order should not become a precedent as the high court order came on an application moved by Enforcement Directorate.
The bench, however, underlined that it was only looking at the high court order. “In this case, we are satisfied that both cases are linked… We are on the high court order. Can we say there was an absence of material for the high court to pass an order,” the court said.
Additional solicitor general (ASG) SV Raju, who appeared for CBI, told the court that while probing the recruitment made by the West Bengal Primary Education Board, the agency found that the same company was engaged to prepare OMR sheets for the school recruitment examination and recruitment of staffers by about 16-17 municipalities.
The senior law officer added that the two cases were “intermingled” and part of one conspiracy since the company printed OMR sheets for both exams.”
Raju also objected to the state fighting to protect the accused. “There is an effort to protect higher dignitaries in the state as there is a possible involvement of education minister, other ministers and head of WB primary education board,” Raju said.
CBI said that in the teacher recruitment racket, investigators recovered ₹50 crore cash and ₹5 crore jewellery from state education minister Partha Chatterjee and his associate. Raju alleged that ₹350 crore had passed hands to give appointments to undeserving people.
The West Bengal government opposed the high court order for a CBI probe, citing an October 2022 decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that it was not proper for high courts to straightaway order an investigation by CBI unless the allegations were so outrageous and the perpetrators of the alleged offences so powerful that an investigation by the state police would be ineffective.
The state government also stressed that if the ED, in the course of its probe into the teacher recruitment case, detected an offence, it should have brought it to the notice of the state police since law and order was a state subject and any cognizable offence in Bengal falls within the jurisdiction of the state police.
