The Supreme Court granted time to jailed Trinamool MLA Manik Bhattacharya to file some additional documents in support of his bail plea in a matter related to alleged irregularities in recruitment of primary school teachers in West Bengal.
A bench of Justice Bela M Trivedi and Justice Pankaj Mithal considered the submissions of Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for Manik Bhattacharya, that he wanted to file certain documents on record. The Senior Advocate mentioned that the Trinamool leader is not an accused in the main CBI case. Subsequently, the bench listed the matter after six weeks.
Manik Bhattacharya, a former chairman of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on October 11, 2023 after night-long questioning. The Trinamool leader was arrested for allegedly not cooperating with the investigation.
Later on December 15, 2023, the Supreme Court had issued a notice to the ED on Manik Bhattacharya’s appeal against a November 16 Calcutta High Court order dismissing his bail application.
The High Court in its order stated that having regard to the issue relating to which the investigation of the case is being continued, the number of victims involved, and the accused person being an influential person, whose means, position are beyond question at the state administrative level as also the education department, his release, will have an impact the probe when an outer limit of 31st December 2023 has been fixed by the Division Bench to conclude the investigation, which is being carried on by the investigation agency.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court had also earlier dismissed Bhattacharya’s plea against his arrest by the ED, observing that the agency’s action was not illegal. On February 16, the Supreme Court granted bail to Bhattacharya’s son Souvik in a money laundering case related to the West Bengal teachers’ recruitment scam.