‘What Subiresh Bhattacharya did was betrayal to society’, says Calcutta HC on Teachers’ scam case

Kolkata: A division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday observed that the role of the former chairman of West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) and former vice- chancellor of the University of North Bengal in the multi- crore teachers’ recruitment scam was nothing but “utter betrayal to the society”.

Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Ajay Kumar Gupta made this observation while rejecting the bail application of Subiresh Bhattacharya.

“This is not the job of a postmaster. A corruption in recruitment of teachers is nothing but betrayal to the society,” Justice Bagchi observed.

Bhattacharya’s counsel while arguing in favour of the bail plea for his client claimed that the irregularities in teachers’ recruitment did not happen during this tenure as the WBSSC chairman and his client was also the vice chancellor of a university.

“We are not bothered by the fact that he was the vice- chancellor of any university. We are just bothered about the charges of corruption against him,” Justice Bagchi observed.

Bhattacharya’s counsel then pointed out that as per the charge sheet filed in October, the main charge against his client was that the optical mark recognition (OMR) sheets were tampered with following his instructions. “However, in reality S.P. Sinha, as the head of the screening committee of WBSSC, was the main person responsible for the entire recruitment process. My client was first summoned as a witness and then he was arrested,” Bhattacharya’s counsel argued.

Then Justice Bagchi observed that as the chairman of WBSSC, neither Bhattacharya could avoid his responsibilities nor avoid the allegations raised on this count.

“Why was he not cautious irrespective of whoever brings the allegations. Can’t society expect that the recruitment of a teacher will be done through fair and transparent means?” Justice Bagchi questioned.

Thereafter his bail plea was rejected by the division bench.

–IANS