Kolkata/IBNS: In an explosive claim, former West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) chairman Chittaranjan Mondal has said he was pressured by Trinamool Congress (TMC)'s erstwhile heavyweight Mukul Roy and now jailed ex-Education Minister Partha Chatterjee in the recruitment process.

Mondal made the claim at a special CBI court on the inaugural day of the SSC court hearing.

Mondal, who remained the SSC chairman from 2011 to 2013, said he was informed about his appointment to the post by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself.

When he was asked about on whose insistence he took up the job, the former chairman said, "CM had informed me about my appointment and then I had joined the service."

Roy, who was the number two man after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the ruling Trinamool Congress, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2017.

Later, the veteran returned to the TMC in 2021 but he is currently inactive in politics owing to health issues.

Chatterjee, another erstwhile TMC heavyweight, was the Commerce and Industries Minister during the period Mondal was the SSC chairman.

During Mondal's tenure, Bratya Basu was the Education Minister.

SSC scam and its fallout

On April 3, the Supreme Court cancelled appointments of nearly 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staff by the SSC upholding the Calcutta High Court's order.

The top court passed the order after the SSC failed to provide two separate lists of deserving and undeserving candidates after the government faced corruption allegations in the recruitment process.

A top court bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said the selection process was "vitiated and tainted by fraud".

In April 2024, the Calcutta High Court had cancelled recruitment of nearly 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff in government-sponsored and government-aided schools, dismissing the entire 2016 teacher recruitment panel.

The panel was constituted by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC).

Erstwhile state education minister Partha Chatterjee, former primary education board president and Trinamool MLA Manik Bhattacharya, youth leader Kuntal Ghosh are among the people who were arrested so far in connection with the scam.

Former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Ganguly, who is now contesting the Lok Sabha elections on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket, had ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged irregularities in the recruitment process.