Kolkata, Sep 17, 2022, IANS
Kolkata, Sep 17 (IANS): Having almost completed the first stage of its investigation into the multi-crore West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam, which involved the inward flow of the scam proceeds, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is now set to enter the second stage of its probe, which is identifying the distribution and expenditure pattern of the accumulated proceeds of crime.
This second phase, according to CBI sources, is crucial since it would reveal more names of influential persons who are the beneficiaries of the scam.
"In any financial embezzlement of this nature, the number of names involved in the proceeds collection process are less than the number of people involved in the distribution process. For any scam, it is important for the scamsters to keep in confidence the influential people in the political and administrative set up to keep the scam under the carpet.
"Hence the involvement of influential people is more at the proceeds distribution level than in the collection level. The process of identifying the big names at the collection level is almost complete, and it is now time to identify those involved in the outward flow of the proceeds," a CBI official said.
CBI presently has three prime accused in the scam under its custody -- former state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee, ex-WBSSC Chairman Kalyanmoy Gangopadhyay and former convener of the commission's screening committee, S.P. Sinha.
CBI sources said that the individual interrogation of all the three has been done in phases and a lot of discrepancies have been found in their statements.
"Now that we have all three of them in our custody at the same time, we will grill them together so that any attempt to mislead us is foiled," the CBI official said.
It is learnt that Chatterjee has already started showing signs of crumbling and the investigating sleuths expect him to break down anytime and reveal more crucial information about the actual beneficiaries of the scam.
In fact, while attending the last two hearings in the matter at a special CBI court, Chatterjee broke into tears while appealing for bail, constantly repeating that he has been made a victim of conspiracy.