CBI Intensifies Search in School Recruitment Scam

CBI officers continued their search operations at a private company in connection with a school recruitment scam, seizing servers and hard disks to locate digital backups of Optical Mark Recognition sheets from 2014 recruitment tests. The Calcutta High Court has instructed CBI to retrieve these crucial data segments.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officers conducted extensive search operations on the premises of a city-based private company on Friday, as part of their investigation into a school recruitment scam, according to an official statement. During the search at M/s S Basu Roy and Co. in Southern Avenue, the CBI seized two servers and multiple hard disks, focusing on finding digital backups of Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets used in recruitment tests.

The search team comprised six officers and two cybercrime experts. 'The seized servers and hard disks will be subjected to forensic analysis to recover data. Our primary objective is to locate digital copies of the OMR sheets if they exist,' the CBI official stated.

This action comes following a directive from the Calcutta High Court last week, instructing the CBI to diligently trace and recover original or destroyed storage media containing scanned OMR sheets from the Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET) conducted in 2014. The court advised the CBI to collaborate with agencies like NIC, WIPRO, TCS, and INFOSYS to verify whether the existing digital storage belongs to M/s. S Basu Roy and Co. or the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE). The costs for these expert services are to be covered by WBBPE upon the CBI's request. The case is set for another hearing on August 23.