Kolkata: Former education minister Partha Chatterjee on Wednesday once again visited the CBI office for quizzing in connection with the alleged West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) scam.
After being quizzed for over eight hours, Chatterjee left the CBI office at Nizam Palace on Wednesday evening.
According to CBI sources, Chatterjee was interrogated in two intervals.
“Chatterjee several times claimed that though he was the former education minister, he didn’t know about the functioning and also about recruitment. CBI is still not convinced with the answers of Chatterjee. Written statements have been taken which will be matched,” said the CBI sources.
CBI had earlier also questioned the members of the advisory panel, which was constituted by the West Bengal School Education Department in November, 2019.
The CBI sources also claimed that questions about the recruitment of Ankita Adhikari, daughter of MoS education Paresh Adhikary was also asked to Chatterjee.
“Several statements of Chatterjee are not matching with statements of the advisory panel. So the same questions are being asked to Chatterjee,” further added CBI sources.
Meanwhile, in a big revelation, Justice Ranjit Kumar Bag in his report has mentioned that the committee had interacted with 16 persons who were recruited and out of them, 8 did not even appear in the examination while seven were issued recommendation letters.
It can be recalled that the former education minister was quizzed for three and a half hours during his first visit to the CBI office on May 18.
However, the Supreme Court stayed the hearing of Chatterjee’s appeal that they should stay on the Calcutta High Court’s verdict that Chatterjee should be present before the CBI.
Single judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay had given a verdict that Chatterjee should be present before CBI for the probe of the scam. Challenging the verdict of the single judge bench, Chatterjee moved the division bench of HC but even the division bench didn’t give him protection.
