North Bengal bypolls: BJP, TMC battle for Madarihat and Sitai seats
People in the Madarihat and Sitai Assembly segments of north Bengal will exercise their democratic rights tomorrow in by-elections.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today quizzed the Vice Chancellor of the North Bengal University (NBU), Dr Subiresh Bhattacharya, in connection with the alleged corruption in the various recruitments under the School Service Commission (SSC).
Sources said around an 11-member CBI team arrived at the official residence of the VC on the NBU campus at around 10 am and questioned him for several hours and checked documents.
Dr Bhattacharya has been the VC of the university since February 2018. An inquiry report prepared by a high court-appointed committee headed by Justice Ranjit Kumar Bag, a former judge of the court, on alleged corruption in the recruitment of staff for government-aided schools by the School Service Commission has named Dr Bhattacharya, who had been the chairman of the SSC then.
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The committee has also recommended departmental proceedings against former SSC officials on charges of violating SSC recruitment rules. The Calcutta High Court has also ordered CBI investigations into the recruitments made under the SSC. “We are not authorized to speak,” said one of the team members of the CBI, when reporters asked him to comment as he stepped out and left the NBU premises in the evening.
Another group of members left a little later, while they too refused to speak to the media. Sources said the team members included those working for the CBI in Siliguri too. Meanwhile, the president of the North Bengal University Teachers’ Council, Dr Samar Kumar Biswas, said the CBI raid would tarnish the image of the entire north Bengal. “We are ashamed of all this,” Dr Biswas said.
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