Manish Jain To Spill Beans!

Soumitra Bose

New Delhi (The Hawk): Manish Jain To Spill Beans (No Hold Barred; Sirf Sach, Sach Ke Siwai Aur Kuch Nahi...Nako, Nako, Eelley, Eelley...) When He'll Be Face-To-Face With The CBI Answering Its Pointed Queries On Rs 100 Cr+ Scam On Teachers Recruitment: Spilling Beans? Splling Beans? Apparently Yes, If the authorities are to be believed: The CBI will now interrogate Manish Jain, Principal Secretary of West Bengal School Education Department regarding the truth behind the Rs 100-Cr scandal relating to the primary teacher recruitments in the state that has set the ball rolling relating to open corruption in the state. It is strongly expected that the CBI’ll succeed in extracting the truth from Jain who is said to be desperately itching any way to come out with the truth provided he be guaranteed protection by the suthorities, confide insiders.    

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday summoned Manish Jain, the Principal Secretary of the West Bengal school education department for interrogation in the teachers' recruitment scam. Jain has been asked to appear before the probe agency at the Nizam Palace in Kolkata on Thursday.

The CBI is investigating discrepancies surrounding the multi-crore job scam, and Jain's name came to light following the arrest of former Education Minister Partha Chatterjee.

A CBI official said a set of questions had been prepared for Jain's interrogation.

This is not the first time Jain has faced scrutiny from the CBI regarding the case. He was previously questioned by the probe agency for more than five hours last year. The CBI now seeks to reexamine him in light of several new statements provided by TMC youth wing leader Kuntal Ghosh, who was arrested in connection with the case. The CBI official said there is evidence that Jain was aware that there were some irregularities in the recruitment process. There are several files where his signatures have been found, proving that he had knowledge about the irregularities in the recruitment process, the official said.

"The evidence against Jain suggests his involvement in the recruitment scam. The presence of his signatures on documents indicates his awareness of the irregularities associated with the job scam," revealed the officer.

In May 2022, the CBI was directed to probe the appointment of non-teaching staff (Group C and D) and teaching staff by the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) and West Bengal Board of Secondary Education between 2014 and 2021. The appointees had allegedly paid bribes in the range of Rs 5 lakh to Rs 15 lakh to get jobs after failing the selection tests.

According to the CBI, more than Rs 100 crore was allegedly raised by TMC leaders from job aspirants to employ them as teachers and staff at state-run schools across West Bengal between 2014 and 2021.