The Supreme Court granted bail to former West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee, along with Dr. Subires (Subiresh) Bhattacharyya and SP Sinha, in the so-called “cash-for-jobs” teacher recruitment scandal.
The case, being probed by both the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED), involves serious allegations of irregularities in school-level hiring processes.
The Bench, comprising of Justice M.M. Sundresh and Justice N.K. Singh, approved their appeals against earlier bail denials, emphasizing that all three individuals had been held without trial for nearly three years. They criticized the prolonged delays particularly the failure to grant prosecution sanction for co-accused persons—that had stalled legal proceedings.
Notably, sanction for prosecution has already been granted in Chatterjee’s case, but remains pending for Bhattacharyya and Sinha. The court directed that formal charges be framed within the next four weeks, and mandated that critical witnesses be examined within two months. Should the trial fail to progress, the accused are permitted to return to court to seek further relief.
In a pointed exchange during proceedings, the Court asked: “How long inside? underscoring the injustice of continued detention despite completed investigations and the filing of charge sheets.
While this bail decision offers a legal victory for the accused, Partha Chatterjee is expected to remain incarcerated for now due to his involvement in additional cases especially those concerning primary teacher recruitment still underway.
In an earlier order on May 8, the Supreme Court had instructed the West Bengal government to act within two weeks on pending prosecution sanction requests for co-accused, aiming to expedite trial proceedings.
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