Bengal recruitment case: CBI conducts parallel raids at residences of Trinamool confidant, bureaucrat

Kolkata, May 4 Two teams of CBI on Thursday started conducting parallel raids and search operations at the residences of a Trinamool Congress confidant and a bureaucrat in connection with the multi-crore West Bengal recruitment case in state-run schools.

The first team of CBI started the raid and search operations at the residence of Sukanta Acharya, the executive assistant of the former West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee at New Barrackpore in North 24 Parganas district.

Meanwhile, the second team of CBI, started parallel raid and search operations at the residence of Sujay Krishna Bhadra at Behala in Kolkata.

Bhadra, known to be a close confidant of top Trinamool Congress leadership, has been questioned earlier by the central agency sleuths.

Till the time, the report was filed, the raids and search operations were on.

Sources said that the raid and search operations at Acharya's residence were in connection with the recommendations for recruitment made from Chatterjee's department.

Chatterjee, who is currently in judicial custody, has since the beginning claimed that as the state education minister, he had no role in the recruitment process.

Acharya, along with two other bureaucrats, has already been named in the supplementary chargesheet filed by Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is conducting a parallel probe.

The other bureaucrats named in the supplementary chargesheet include the current State Education Secretary Manish Jain and officer-on-special-duty Probir Bandopadhyay. However, none of the three have been mentioned as accused in the supplementary charge sheet.