CBI again summons Bengal Education Secy in school recruitment scam

Kolkata, June 21 (IANS) For the second time in just eight days, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has again summoned West Bengal Education Secretary Manish Jain to interrogate him in connection to the multi-crore school recruitment scam case.

Sources said that Jain has been asked to appear at the CBI's Nizam Palace office in Kolkata by 11 a.m. on Friday.

On June 15, he was questioned for over six hours.

The sources said that during the course of interrogation, it was revealed that a number of crucial files in connection with the recruitment process were missing.

Jain will now be questioned in relation to the details of those files and how they went missing, they added.

This is the third time that the Education Secretary has been summoned by the CBI.

He has also been named as a witness in the charge sheet filed by Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is conducting a parallel probe into the case.

During his earlier interrogation, Jain told the CBI that his work was to just sign the files forwarded to him by former state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee for learance.

Chatterjee is currently in judicial custody due to his alleged involvement in the case.

It was because of Jain's confession in court that the Education Department faced the ire of the Calcutta High Court's single-judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay for the decision to create super-numeric teaching posts in state-run schools.