Two days after the Calcutta High Court ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to carry out a preliminary probe into alleged irregularities in teachers’ recruitment in schools under the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) in the hill districts of West Bengal, the state police on Thursday registered an FIR against former GTA chairperson Binay Tamang, former state education minister Partha Chatterjee, and state president of Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP) Trinankur Bhattacharya among several others.
The Bidhannagar Police registered the FIR on a complaint lodged by the state School Education Department on Wednesday.
This is the first time that the police have registered an FIR on a complaint lodged by the state department in an alleged “recruitment scam”, sources said.
The FIR also named the then School Inspector Pranagovinda Sarkar and people considered close to the ruling TMC such as Prantik Chakraborty, Bubai Bose, and Devalina Das.
“It is good if the state (government) is doing a probe. I will cooperate in all possible ways. Let the truth come out,” TMCP leader Trinankur Bhattacharya said when asked about the case being lodged against him.
On Tuesday, while directing the CBI to conduct an initial inquiry into the allegations levelled by a government official in a letter to him, Justice Biswajit Basu of the Calcutta High Court had pulled up the Bidhannagar Police for allegedly not acting on the complaint sent to it earlier and sought an affidavit from the police as well as the GTA within 15 days. The court also asked the CBI to submit a preliminary probe report within two weeks.
According to sources, a government official had written a letter to Justice Bose alleging “illegal recruitment” in various schools of the GTA — the regional autonomous body governing Darjeeling hills. “The official also said that the state School Education Department filed a complaint with the Bidhannagar Police in this regard. But the police did not take any action,” an official said
“The allegations of corruption in the appointment of teachers in various schools under the GTA came to light in 2022. The then GTA Chief Executive Officers Anit Thapa and Binay Tamang illegally appointed around 500 teachers. It is alleged that many party workers and supporters and family members of the two leaders were hired,” the official said.
Former GTA chairperson Binay Tamang, who is now with the Congress, was once a close aide of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha founder Bimal Gurung before he fell out with him in 2017. He joined the TMC in 2021 but quit a year after.
Former education minister Partha Chatterjee is currently in jail in connection with the alleged irregularities in the hiring of school staff in government-aided schools in the state (SSC ‘scam’). He was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) last July following a raid at his premises.