Calcutta HC dismisses minister’s daughter from job, father to face probe

The single bench of Calcutta High Court headed by Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay on May 20 ordered the dismissal of Ankita Adhikari from service. Adhikari is the daughter of Minister of State for School Education, who is alleged to have been recruited as assistant teacher with the help of her minister father in what has come to be known as teacher recruitment scam. The Court also ordered the minister’s daughter to deposit the entire salary she has drawn for 41 months with the High Court Registrar General in two instalments. The first instalment has to be deposited on June 7 and the second one a month later. The CBI has filed FIRs against the daughter-father duo and the junior minister was taken to Nizam Palace for interrogation by the CBI on May 19 when he touched down the Kolkata airport. The Court also debarred Ankita from entering the school premises till further orders.

The genesis of the recruitment scam lies in 2014 notification for appointment of assistant teachers in non-government, government aided, sponsored secondary and higher secondary schools through West Bengal Central School Service Commission (SSC). After the eligibility test, recruitment process started in 2016. However, a series of petitions were filed in the Calcutta High Court alleging fraud in the recruitment process. Ankita is one such beneficiary of this tainted recruitment process. In the meanwhile, the West Bengal government issue another notification in 2016 for the recruitment of 13,000 Group-D employees for state-run and aided schools to be conducted by the SSC. Although the panel making the appointments had expired in 2019, 25 persons are alleged to have been appointed by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education.

In a related development, a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court rejected a petition filed by former Education Minister Partha Chatterjee, who is now the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Parliamentary Affairs, seeking protection from arrest by the CBI. The High Court ordered Chatterjee to appear before the CBI by 6 pm on May 19 to face inquiry and if need be the CBI could arrest the minister. Chatterjee, who has now approached the Supreme Court seeking stay on the High Court order, had been grilled by the CBI for four hours a day before on May 18 in the Nizam Palace. The Court also advised the minister to resign.

After the High Court found contradictory the statements filed by the government departments concerned, the Court ordered the CBI to investigate the scam. As the scam hit news headlines and petitioners clamoured for a fair probe and justice, the High Court in an unprecedented move held special hearing on May 18 night after the SSC chairperson Siddhartha Majumdar resigned four months after he took charge of the scam-tainted SSC. Some petitioners had the approached the Court expressing the apprehension that evidence lying in the SSC office could be destroyed. Ordering the CRPF to cordon off the SSC building and guard it well from potential intrusions, the High Court allowed limited access to the newly appointed SSC chairperson Subhra Chakrabarti, 2007-batch IAS officer, his adviser, secretary, assistant secretary and a stenographer to the Acharya Bhawan in Salt Lake under CRPF vigil.

Upon instructions from the High Court, the CBI has locked the computer server room in the Acharya Bhawan to secure the information stored therein. The CBI has also collected all digital images of each computer, using a special software, which would enable the investigators to know if anyone tries to delete or tamper with the evidence.

However, the hard disk has not been confiscated yet. The CRPF is expected to remain on guard of the SSC building till the job is over.