ED to conduct parallel probe to track money trail in WBSSC scam

Kolkata, May 27 (IANS) The CBI has now roped in Enforcement Directorate (ED) to track the money trail in the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam.

CBI sources told IANS that since the sleuths of ED, the investigative arm of the Union ministry of finance, have better expertise in tracking the money trail in any scam that involves financial offence, an official request was made by the CBI to ED for starting a parallel inquiry on money trail line.

Now, sources said, an official communique has come to CBI from ED with the latter accepting the proposal to start a parallel line of probe in this connection. It is learnt that the ED officials have sought details relating to the case from CBI like all the FIRs filed by the latter in this connection, statements of people recorded, bank accounts and asset details of the suspects and most importantly the report of the Calcutta High Court- appointed judicial committee's report in this connection.

Meanwhile, CBI sources said that they have come across some exchanges of mobile communications between some erstwhile WBSSC officials and some candidates who got employment without qualifying in the written examination and even not appearing for personality tests.

A CBI official, who did not wish to be named, said that one of the principal routes of the irregularities was opaque system of marks publication on the website of the WBSSC, where instead of publishing the entire merit list of written examination, a system was introduced where a candidate concerned could know only his or her marks and not his or her competitors.

"Now we want to know who was the mastermind behind the introduction of this opaque system of result publication. We have asked this question to each and everyone we have integrated, including the former state education minister, Partha Chatterjee. While the minister has claimed total ignorance in this matter, the others who were questioned were in a total passing the buck mode," the CBI official said.

CBI officers are also trying to find out under whose instructions the scanned signature of regional chairpersons was saved in the server of WBSSC, to be used while issuing recommendation letters at a later stage.