Kolkata, April 25 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has summoned Trinamool Congress MLA Tapas Saha to its office in Kolkata this week for questioning in connection with the multi-crore teachers’ recruitment scam in West Bengal.
Sources said that during raid and search operations at his residence last week, the central agency sleuths recovered a number of incriminating documents. Similar documents were seized from the residences of his former personal assistant Probir Koyal and his close aide Iti Saha.
Now Saha has been summoned this week for questioning on the documents seized by the central agency sleuths on this count, the sources said.
Already the CBI sleuths have traced bank transactions worth Rs 2 crore from a particular bank account of Koyal in the beginning of 2022. The agency has already contacted the bank officials concerned for details on this count.
The central agency officials are trying to join the dots on two counts, the first being whether such huge transactions had actually been the proceeds of the multi- crore scam and the second is whether Saha actually used his former personal assistant in the forefront in collecting such proceeds.
Besides the particular bank account in Kayal’s name, the CBI sleuths have also sought details of the bank accounts held by him and his family members.
Saha, however, claimed that he had been a victim of conspiracy hatched by his own party colleagues in the district.
The CBI probe against Saha had been initiated following an order by the Calcutta High Court on April 18, which noted that since the state police refused to act on the allegations about Saha’s involvement in the recruitment scam, the probe in the matter is fit to be handed over to the CBI.
Saha is the fourth Trinamool MLA to come under the scanner of central agencies in connection with the recruitment scam after former Education Minister Partha Chatterjee, ex-Chairman of West Bengal Board of Primary Education Manik Bhattacharya and Jiban Krishna Saha, the party MLA from Burdwan assembly constituency in Murshidabad district.
While Chatterjee and Bhattacharya are currently in judicial custody, Jiban Krishna Saha is in the custody of CBI.
–IANS
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