Kolkata CBI court denies bail to Kuntal Ghosh in teacher recruitment scam

Kolkata: A special CBI court in Kolkata on Tuesday denied bail to Trinamool Congress leader Kuntal Ghosh in the primary teacher recruitment scam in West Bengal.

Ghosh was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on January 21, 2023, on charges of collecting money from bogus candidates and providing them government jobs as primary school teachers.

He has also been accused of collecting money from candidates for their appointment in Group-D posts.

Ghosh had moved Supreme Court (SC) recently, praying for bail. The SC directed the special CBI court in Kolkata to hear Ghosh's plea on a day-to-day basis and decide whether he should be granted bail within 10 days. The special CBI court had taken up the matter accordingly on Saturday.

While Ghosh's counsel contended that his client deserved bail as he had spent over 20 months behind bars without the ED being able to produce any concrete evidence against him, Phiroze Edulji, the Special PP for ED, submitted that eligible candidates had been denied their Right to Life (under Article 21 of the Constitution) through the activities of the accused.

He further submitted that there is no way to compensate for the loss the deserving candidates suffered and the process of tracing the money trail is still on. Edulji prayed to the court not to grant bail to Ghosh under the circumstances.

The court, in its order, observed that there is evidence of Ghosh having deposited Rs 6.5 crore of his ill-gotten gains in bank accounts opened in his name and the names of his wife and child.

Some of this money had been spent to pay 'agents' who brought in bogus candidates for recruitment as teachers. It was also pointed out by the court that Ghosh had collected Rs 3.25 crore from 325 bogus candidates through his sub-agent Tapas Kumar Mondal and got them recruited as teachers through TET-2014.

The court was also not convinced by the defence council's plea that an accused is eligible for bail if he or she has spent a third of the sentence s/he is liable to receive, for the crime committed, in custody.

The court observed that eight more months remained for this condition to be fulfilled before disposing of the matter. The court instructed that its order be communicated to the SC as per the latter's direction.