SSC scam Middleman Prasanna Roy remanded to CBI custody till Monday

The Chief Judicial Magistrate's court in Kolkata sent Prasanna Roy, the middleman in the SSC recruitment scam, to CBI custody till Monday.

Kolkata: The court of the chief judicial magistrate (CJM) in Kolkata remanded Prasanna Roy, the middleman arrested in the multi-crore West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam, to two days in CBI custody till August 29. The CJM directed the central agency to present Roy at the CBI special court in Kolkata on Monday.

"As per protocol, we should have presented Roy at the special court of CBI in Kolkata only. But this particular court does not function on Saturdays and Sundays. So as an interim arrangement we presented Roy at the court of CJM and our counsel made a plea for seven days of judicial custody.

However, the CJM approved only two days of CBI custody that is till Monday, following which we will have to present him at the special court of CBI on that day," a CBI official explained. Sources said that besides being the middleman in the scam, connecting the undeserving candidates and the scamsters, Roy played a key role in investing a portion of the scam proceeds in different businesses like hotels, resorts and real estate.

"He was mainly operating with the undeserving candidates from North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas districts. From preliminary findings, we suspect that the multi-crore teachers' recruitment scam operated through a chain of middlemen and their agents with districts divided among them. So far, we have arrested just two such middlemen, Pradip Singh and Prasanna Roy with many more to be netted in due course of time," he said.

Sources said that Prasanna Roy, because of his family relations with the former education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee, enjoyed a special status in the racket. Roy was also extremely close to Santi Prasad Sinha, the former convenor of WBSSC's screening committee, deemed to be the epicentre of the scam. Sources said that Sinha, currently in CBI custody, always hired on-call vehicles from the car rental services owned by Roy. (IANS)