A special court on Wednesday extended the remand of former senior Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee arrested by Enforcement Directorate in the school level recruitment scam for another two days after the ED officials submitted before the court that he was not cooperating in the investigations.
The remand of Chatterjee’s close aide Aripita Mukherjee from whose two apartments the ED recovered Rs 50 crore in cash along with foreign currency, jewellery and property deeds worth several crores too was given an extended remand of another two days. Aripita was cooperating more than Partha the ED officials told the court informing contrary to what the duo claimed they shared relationship from 2012 onwards.
Besides the ED also told the court that the investigators had recovered documents related to four companies jointly owned by the two accused. The officials also said that they had thus far seized nine apartments belonging to the former minister and his aide.
Contrary to what Chatterjee told the ED that he had no relationship with Mukherjee, the officials told the court that they had recovered 31 Life Insurance policies of Arpita. The senior TMC leader is named the nominee in all those policies, the ED advocate said. The duo were arrested late last month following a raid in Chatterjee’s residence at Naktala in South Kolkata where the found papers containing names of Arpita. Subsequent raids to her two apartments the ED recovered huge quantities of liquid cash.
Incidentally the ED officials on Wednesday ventured out of Kolkata raiding the bungalows of accused at Bolpur Shantiniketan from where the officials reportedly recovered some incriminating documents. The sleuths also dug up land in the garden “after the quality of earth looked different in some areas inside the house,” locals said adding the digging work was however suspended for the day following heavy rains.