Bengal school jobs case: Court permits CBI to take custody of accused Sujay Krishna Bhadra

Kolkata, Nov 29 (IANS) A special court here on Friday permitted the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take custody of Sujay Krishna Bhadra, a prime accused in the multi-crore cash-for-school job case in West Bengal currently lodged at the Presidency Central Correctional Home in south Kolkata.

The judge of the special court gave permission to CBI to take custody following his absence from court for the second consecutive day on Friday. Medical grounds were cited as the reason for his absence.

After Bhadra failed to physically turn up in court on Thursday, the judge fixed 12 noon on Friday as the deadline for his physical appearance. However, he did not turn up even on Friday and instead the correctional home authorities forwarded his medical report to the court.

Bhadra has been in judicial custody since he was arrested last year in the matter by the officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is conducting a parallel probe in the school jobs case.

The CBI had also moved a plea for conducting the voice-sampling test of Bhadra, which had already been conducted by the ED official earlier this year.

The probe agency had also sought the permission of the court to conduct the voice-sampling test of Santanu Bandopadhyay, a former youth Trinamool Congress leader.

However, the special court had rejected CBI's plea for conducting their voice-sampling tests of Bhadra and Bandopadhyay by taking them into custody for a day.

Instead, the judge of the special court had advised the central agency to collect their voice-samples at the correction home in the presence of a judicial magistrate.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Friday granted conditional bail to the suspended Trinamool Congress leader Kuntal Ghosh in the same school-job case.

Taking into consideration the delay in commencement of the trial, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan said that continued incarceration of Kuntal Ghosh would not be in conformity with the settled principles of criminal justice of speedy and fair trial.

Kuntal Ghosh will be released on conditions as may be fixed by the trial court. He will deposit his passport and will not leave the state of West Bengal without prior permission, as per the SC order.

The apex court added that bail conditions in the ED case will also apply to the CBI case.

--IANS

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