SC to hear on Nov 3 case challenging HC order allowing CBI to question WBBPE officials

Kolkata: The case challenging a single bench of Calcutta High Court order allowing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to interrogate the officials of the present West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) will be heard by the Supreme Court on November 3.

The case came up for hearing on Monday but since the CBI was not partied to the case, no order was passed and the matter was scheduled. The Calcutta High Court had directed the CBI to summon WBBPE president Gautam Pal and secretary Partha Karmakar at the agency’s Nizam Palace office.

According to a news agency, Pal’s plea for protection from any coercive action by CBI was not accepted by the Apex Court on Monday. Reportedly, Supreme Court verbally observed that if Pal is cooperating with the investigation then why is there a fear of coercive action.

The Single Bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay on October 18 had directed: “CBI has full liberty to decide when the other officials of the present Board would be called for interrogation in respect of this OMR scam and other related matters, including the whole appointment scam in primary teachers’ recruitment. If they do not cooperate with CBI, CBI shall have every liberty to take them into custody for custodial interrogation.”

From the report submitted by CBI in the Court it was found that no authorisation for handing over of confidential records like OMR answer sheets to S. Basu Roy & Co. was made for scanning of such OMRs in their office premises. Moreover, during the process of scanning, no member of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education remained present and the entire process remained unsupervised, it was stated.

According to the report, it was found from the report of CBI that the OMRs were designed by S. Basu Roy & Co. in such a manner that the name and date of birth of any candidate could not be captured with his or her role number during scanning, as those fields were not made part of the OMR. Had those parameters been included in the OMR designing, the detail of any candidate like his or her role number, name, date of birth i.e. unique identity features could be recorded from such OMR.