Supreme Court Dismisses TMC MLA Manik Bhattacharya's Plea Against Arrest In WB Teachers Recruitment Scam

The Supreme Court today dismissed a plea by TMC MLA Manik Bhattacharya against his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with alleged irregularities in primary teacher recruitment in West Bengal.

A Bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Vikram Nath refused to interfere with the ED arrest and junked the plea filed by Bhattacharya.

"The application is dismissed," the Bench said.

The ED had arrested Bhattacharya on October 11 after night-long questioning in connection with the alleged irregularities in the recruitment of primary teachers.

Bhattacharya, the former chairman of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education, was arrested for allegedly not cooperating with the investigation. He is the MLA from the Palashipara assembly constituency in Nadia district.

Earlier, the Court had refused to stay the CBI investigation into the matter of irregularities in the recruitment process of the Assistant Primary Teachers in West Bengal on a petition by Bhattacharya.

The Court had, however, stayed the order of the single judge of the Calcutta High Court removing Manik Bhattacharya as the President of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education, until further order and stayed the order of cancellation of 269 candidates by the Single Judge and gave them the entitlement of filing affidavits to defend their appointment to the respective posts.

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With PTI inputs