The high court asked the CBI to seal the database room in the school service commission’s office in Salt Lake, where documents related to the appointments under the scanner are stored. Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, while passing the order, allowed only a few officials of the commission to access the SSC office and said CRPF personnel would be posted there at least till Friday.
“CRPF will continue to protect the SSC office building at least till Friday. The CBI is directed to put a lock on the main door of the database room at the SSC office building in the presence of the chairman or the secretary,” ordered Justice Gangopadhyay on Thursday afternoon.
About two-and-a-half hours after Justice Gangopadhyay gave the order, an eight-member team from the CBI went to the SSC office, Acharya Sadan, and sealed the database room. Sources in the investigating agency said the sealing of the room would ensure that no data pertaining to the alleged scam in the recruitment of teachers and other staff for government-aided schools could be tampered with. Sources said CBI had plans to collect hard disks from the database room for examinations.
Majumdar was called to the SSC office by the CBI at 4.30pm. He was questioned by the CBI about how the commission functioned and the people involved in the recruitment process, said CBI sources.
Majumdar, during a virtual hearing in the high court on Tuesday on the alleged irregular recruitment of Ankita Adhikary, daughter of Bengal’s minister of state for school education Paresh Chandra Adhikary, had deposed that the commission did not have information about the candidate’s score in the personality test.
The CBI entered the SSC office after Justice Gangopadhyay modified his order delivered on Wednesday night. Following the modification, the chairman, secretary, assistant secretary, stenographers and the advisor to the school service commission were allowed to enter the office.
Late on Wednesday, after candidates seeking jobs in state-aided schools filed an online prayer for deployment of CRPF personnel around the SSC office, Justice Gangopadhyay had ordered deployment of the central force from 12.30am and said no one would enter or leave the office till Thursday noon.
A case filed by the state government in the high court against the deployment of CPRF is likely to be heard on Friday. A CRPF team had taken control of Acharya Sadan, located adjacent to the Wipro intersection in Salt Lake, around 2am. Initially, a team from Bidhannagar East police station, which usually guards the SSC office, refused to open the gates when the CRPF team turned up, said an SSC official.
