Kolkata, May 15 (IANS) Priyadarshini Mallick, the daughter of Jyotipriya Mallick, a former Food and Supplies Minister linked with the PDS scam during the previous Trinamool Congress administration, has been removed from her position as secretary of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE), the body responsible for conducting the state board higher secondary examination.

Sources within the State Education Department said that despite being asked to resign from her position as part of a comprehensive restructuring of the department, which had also been marred during the prior Trinamool Congress administration due to the multi-crore cash-for-school-jobs scandal, she declined to accept the advice.

Finally, the WBCHSE authorities decided to remove her from that chair, and she was ultimately served with the dismissal notice on Thursday night.

Priyadarshini Mallick had been advised by the state government to rejoin her original assignment as an assistant professor of the state-aided Asutosh College in South Kolkata.

Neither Priyadarshini Mallick nor her father Jyotipriya Mallick has given any reaction to the media persons on the matter.

Jyotipriya Mallick was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths in 2023 on charges of his involvement in the multi-crore PDS case as the erstwhile state Food and Supplies Minister. However, at the time of his arrest, he was the state forest minister.

Then, his daughter’s name had also surfaced in the matter. Based on ED’s findings, questions were raised about how she earned a massive amount of Rs 3.37 crore in a particular financial year through private tuitions.

The opposition parties also raised questions about her experience in being appointed as the secretary of WBCHSE.

Jyotipriya Mallick was released on bail after spending about a year behind bars. However, the former Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, did not reinstate him with any ministerial portfolio, though she constantly said that Mallick was innocent.

He re-contested from the Habra Assembly constituency in North 24 Parganas district in the recently concluded Assembly polls. However, he was defeated by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Debdas Mondal by a margin of over 31,000 votes.

–IANS

src/dpb