West Bengal's Municipal Recruitment 'Scam': Documents 'Missing' | Exclusive from CBI Sources

Amid raids on 14 municipalities over allegations of a scam in recruitments in West Bengal, it is learnt that key documents are missing at half of those municipalities. The absence of papers is making the task tough for officers and they are now tracking the beneficiaries.

The scam was pegged at Rs 200-250 Cr and sources now say it could turn out to be as big as the education scam exposed earlier in the state. While at least 7 municipalities are said to have reported missing documents related to the scam, the ambit could be bigger covering more municipalities too, sources say.

News18 has earlier reported how a ‘rate card’ was recovered by the ED during raids which had a price cited for each post to be paid as bribe for recruitment in municipalities. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also referred to this scam recently.

The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) has, however, rubbished the allegations.

THE SCAM

It all started as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested a businessman, Ayan Sil, in a recruitment scam in the education department in March.

The raids at his house led the ED to documents proving that he ran a firm named ABS Infozone. The firm got the tender to look after the recruitment not only in the education department, but also in municipalities.

Officers feel Sil was a key link between the job beneficiaries and middlemen. Agency insiders say the investigation has found that a contract was signed between Sil and municipalities, for which there has to be paper work.

The agencies have submitted documents in court, claiming not only education, but municipal recruitments, too, are seeing corruption.

ACTION TAKEN: 14 MUNICIPALITIES RAIDED

On April 21, the Calcutta High Court gave directions to the CBI to conduct an investigation into municipal recruitments.

The CBI has so far raided 20 spots, including 14 municipalities, in June.

TMC SAYS POLITICAL VENDETTA

When News18 reached out to TMC MP Shantanu Sen, he termed it “political vendetta”.

“This is an absolutely false allegation. They cannot fight the TMC directly, so they are using agencies to do this. The TMC has zero tolerance for corruption. In case anything is wrong, the TMC takes action. This is the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) politics and their weapon is agencies.”