WBSSC Scam: Two arrested ex-officials remanded to seven-day CBI custody

Kolkata, Aug 11 (IANS) A special CBI court on Thursday remanded two former officials of West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC), who were arrested in connection with the multi-crore teacher recruitment scam, to seven-day CBI custody.On Wednesday evening, the CBI had arrested former convener of WBSSC's special screening committee, Santi Prasad Sinha, and the commission's former secretary, Ashok Saha. The two were presented before the special CBI court on Thursday, which remanded them to seven-day custody of the central probe agency.The CBI counsel informed the court that Sinha and Saha, besides being the masterminds of the recruitment scam, also destroyed crucial data from the server of the commission. According to the CBI counsel, the data will be crucial for the agency to identify the influential individuals on whose recommendations illegal recruitments were made by overlooking the merit list.Since Saha and Sinha can provide crucial information about the data they have destroyed, the CBI needed to interrogate them while in custody, the central agency's counsel argued. The CBI counsel also informed the court that both Saha and Sinha were not cooperating with the CBI sleuths during the process of interrogation.Sinha's counsel argued that his client was just an ordinary state government employee and he had been deliberately framed in the case. The counsel argued that since his client has several age-related problems, he should be granted bail.Sinha and Saha were the first persons arrested by the CBI in connection with the WBSSC scam. Earlier, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing the money-trail angle in the scam, had arrested former West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee and his close aide Arpita Mukherjee in connection with the case. Both Chatterjee and Mukherjee are currently in judicial custody.
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