Former West Bengal Education Minister and TMC leader Partha Chatterjee was on Monday granted bail in a school recruitment ‘scam’ case.
Chatterjee was arrested from his Kolkata Naktala residence on 23 July 2022 and would be released almost three months and 18 days later.
Chatterjee was granted bail by the Supreme Court on August 18 but said he would be released after the trial court recorded the statements of important witnesses.
After the examination of eight such persons, Chatterjee’s lawyers on Monday sought a special CBI court for an order to release Chatterjee.
Former cabinet minister Mamata Banerjee will be released after the court orders bail.
While granting bail to Chatterjee, the apex court observed that his continued imprisonment for more than three years would be “a miscarriage of justice”.
Chatterjee, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in 2022 and again by the CBI in 2024, was granted bail in other cases filed against him by two central agencies.
On 26 September, the Calcutta High Court granted bail to Chatterjee in the school recruitment case investigated by the CBI, saying that he would not be able to abuse his office or commit a similar offense in the future as he was not currently holding any such post.
Granting bail to Chatterjee, Justice Suvra Ghosh observed that the charge against the petitioner involved abuse of his official position, which he no longer holds. Therefore, it cannot be said that he could abuse his office or commit similar crimes.”
However, the court said that prima facie it appeared that both Chatterjee and the West Bengal Board of Basic Education Manik Bhattacharya and several others misused their official positions and appointed undeserving candidates as teachers in West Bengal government-run and aided schools, thereby depriving deserving candidates of the same.
The court also noted that the CBI questioned Chatterjee only once and that meant it did not require “further custodial interrogation of the petitioner”.
