School Jobs Case: Ex-Bengal Minister Paresh Adhikary, Daughter Ankita File Exemption Petition

(MENAFN- IANS) Kolkata, Sep 11 (IANS) Former West Bengal minister and Trinamool Congress MLA Paresh Adhikary and his daughter Ankita Adhikary have filed exemption petition at a court here, seeking their release from school jobs recruitment case.

On Thursday, the father and daughter claimed in the court that they are innocent. Ankita said she had got the teaching job on her own merit.

At the same time, their lawyer argued that when Ankita got the job, Paresh Adhikary was not holding any position of power. As a result, there is no question of influencing anyone to her his daughter the teaching job.

In their petition, both sought their release from the case. The court will hear their petition at a later date.

It may be noted that Trinamool Congress MLA Paresh Adhikary and his daughter Ankita were granted bail in the School Service Commission (SSC) teacher recruitment case last Wednesday.

They had surrendered before the CBI Special Court in Kolkata's Alipore in a CBI case related to corruption in the SSC recruitment process.

At the same time, they also applied for bail. At the end of the day, the lower court granted conditional bail to both the father and daughter. They were granted bail on a personal bond of Rs 7,000.

Recently, the CBI submitted the final charge-sheet in the SSC recruitment case for 9th-10th and 11th-12th classes. Last month, the final charge-sheet was submitted to the Alipore court in the Group-C recruitment case as well. Earlier, the CBI had submitted two more charge sheets in that case. In total, four charge sheets have been submitted.

A total of 75 people were summoned to the court in all the cases. Under such circumstances, Paresh and Ankita Adhikary surrendered to the court.

Incidentally, the name of the former minister's daughter is at number 104 in the list of 'tainted and ineligible' candidates which was published by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recently.

It may be recalled that Ankita got a teaching job for political science submitted for classes 11th and 12th through WBSSC. However, another job seeker, Babita Sarkar, filed a case in the Calcutta High Court alleging that Ankita had got the job illegally. In May 2022, then Calcutta High Court Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay cancelled Ankita's job.

The High Court also ordered her to return her salary. As a result, Babita got the job of the daughter of a former state minister and a salary of about Rs 15 lakh.

Later, it was learned that there was a mistake in the evaluation of Babita's marks. She also lost her job after another job seeker named Anamika Roy filed a case. Finally, the same job went to Anamika Roy.

However, Roy too lost the job after the Supreme Court cancelled the teaching and non-teaching jobs of about 26,000 candidates.

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