The CBI team probing the SSC recruitment scam under the Calcutta High Court diktat today is understood to have put its focus on getting the “elusive” answer from the junior education minister Paresh Adhikary on the alleged invisible hand that provided job to his daughter.
The minister was quizzed for marathon 9.5 hours by the CBI today.
Advertisement
They wanted to know how her name figured in the SSC merit list replacing a deserving candidate.
On the second consecutive day, today, the central agency picked up the pieces where it left off yesterday after grilling the minister for around four hours yesterday.
Sources in the central agency claimed that the sleuths would try to pin down the “invisible clout” that was at play and what was his role as the junior minister in the education department behind his daughter’s alleged elevation in the merit list replacing a deserving one.
A source in the know of today’s developments said that since yesterday’s quiz was incomplete and many questions went unanswered, the agency tried to elicit information from him on whether he had made any attempts to utilize his clout in his capacity as the minister of state or any person he may have had deputed to manipulate the list allegedly in his daughter’s favour. He was also asked on how could a second merit list for appointing assistant teachers witness a dramatic change by inserting his daughter’s name and in the process deprive genuine candidates their jobs.
But sources said that since the minister was evasive to most of the queries put to him and was trying to derail the probe by either trying to remain oblivious to the most of the developments that paved the way for his daughter’s roller-coaster ride to the teacher’s post despite not having to appear in the personality test, the interrogation became more intense.
Meanwhile, the agency also summoned the former state education minister and the Trinamul Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee for the second time, next week, since the agency felt it necessary to quiz him further as some discrepancy in his statements surfaced.
A source in the CBI said the statements made by Chatterjee regarding the advisory panel, which was termed as illegal by the high court-appointed Bag committee, were not in sync with those made by Shanti Prasad Sinha and other members of the panel.
He was also found wanting in replies regarding its day-to-day working and his control over the said panel.
