Bengal school jobs case: CBI collects voice samples of two accused persons

Kolkata (The Uttam Hindu): The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials, on Wednesday, collected the voice samples of Santanu Bandopadhyay and Santu Gangopadhyay, both being accused in the multi-crore cash-for-school- job case in West Bengal. Both were presented at a special court in Kolkata on Monday and thereafter, their voice samples were collected in the presence of a judicial magistrate. The CBI officials will now match those samples with the audio clips of their conversations recovered from their mobile phones.

While Bandopadhyay is an expelled Trinamool Congress leader, Gangopadhyay is a private promoter and known to be an extremely close confidant of the former West Bengal Education Minister and the Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee, who is also in judicial custody currently in relation to the school job case. Bandopadhyay was arrested last year by the officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is conducting a parallel probe in the school job case. Last month, CBI officials also arrested Gangopadhyay in the same case. Sources said that if the voice samples match the audio clips recovered by the investigating officials in the matter it might open a new dimension in the probe in the school-job case.

Currently, both Bandopadhyay and Gangopadhyay are in judicial custody. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of India reserved the verdict on the bail plea of Partha Chatterjee in the case. On Tuesday, ED had filed its fifth supplementary chargesheet or supplementary prosecution complaint in the school-job case. A total of 29 people and corporate entities were named in the fresh charge sheet filed under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2020 before a special PMLA court in Kolkata. Sources aware of the development said that the names of the companies named in the fresh charge sheet include some linked to the former West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee.

These companies linked to Chatterjee had been under the scanner of the ED officials for a long time after their officials got specific clues that these entities were basically shell companies opened basically to divert the ill-gotten proceeds in the school job case. The fresh chargesheet, sources claimed, also named another much-talked-about corporate entity linked to Sujay Krishna Bhadra, a prime accused in the school jobs case.