Partho held in school-level job scam case
Bengal Industries Minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general Partho Chatterjee, who was on Saturday morning arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with school-level recruitment scam, was remanded in two days’ ED custody by a local court.
The ED arrested Chatterjee after it recovered huge amount of cash, jewellery and documents from his close aide Arpita Mukherjee on Saturday during a statewide raid.
Chatterjee complained of illness immediately after his production in court and was admitted to State-run SSKM Hospital. The ACJM court turned down the ED’s request to send him to a Central government-run medical hospital.
Apart from Chatterjee and Arpita, the Minister’s private secretary Sukanto Acharya, too, was arrested.
According to sources, the investigating agency recovered Rs 21 crore from the upmarket apartment of Arpita, a lawyer-turned actress. Deeds related to at least 10 other landed properties and jewellery and foreign currency worth another Rs 1 crore were recovered from her premises, sources said.
Monalisa Das, another “close aide” of Chatterjee, was under the ED scanner. Das, a university professor, is known to have at least 10 apartments and bungalows at various places, including Shantiniketan.
Wads of currency notes mostly wrapped in “Education Department” envelopes were recovered by the ED officials. Sources said the envelopes carried printed logos of “minister in charge”.
The officials were trying to determine whether the envelopes belonged to the era when Chatterjee was the Education Minister. About 16 trunks were brought by the RBI to carry away the cash recovered from the apartment of Arpita Mukherjee, ED sources said.
According to ED sources, the investigating officials have extracted information from a close relation of Chatterjee who runs an international school at Pingla a semi-urban settlement in West Midnapore.
Sources said the land for the school was purchased for Rs 45 crore in hard cash during the demonetisation period.
Subsequently, a huge school owned and managed by the relatives of Chatterjee’s daughter was constructed on the land.
While seeking custody for Chatterjee, the ED pleaded non-cooperation on the part of the minister. The agency also submitted that the huge amount of money found at Arpita’s apartment where Chatterjee was a regular visitor could be linked to the cash obtained from the people who were illegally provided jobs in by the School Services Commission?
The case relates to the days when Chatterjee was the Education Minister. He is known to have created a five-member advisory committee to supervise the recruitment of thousands of Group C, D staff and teachers of Secondary and Higher Secondary levels.
Meanwhile, the BJP, Left, and the Congress called the Friday-Saturday’s recovery the tip of the iceberg while the Trinamool Congress distanced itself from Chatterjee. Party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said, “The TMC is not related to the money recovered and those from whose possession the cash has been seized and those who are being probed and their lawyers have to explain their conduct.”
Ghosh, however, wondered why the CBI and the ED did not interrogate BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, who was seen openly accepting cash in the Narada videos and who was also named in the FIR in chit fund cases.
“This means it is clear that had Chatterjee joined the BJP washing the machine then he would have been questioned by the ED nor whatever has been found would actually have been found,” he said.
Saying that the Chief Minister or the TMC should not be maligned in the case. Minister Firhad Hakim wondered why “The Opposition parties, who are implicating the TMC, not taking the name of senior BJP leaders with whom the pictures of Mehul Chowksi or Nirav Modi appeared.”
On whether the latest development would impact the TMC’s organizational setup, Ghosh said “the party will remain as united as it has always been behind Mamata Banerjee.”
Reacting to Chatterjee’s arrest BJP vice president Dilip Ghosh said “Bengal has never been brought to such disrepute by any government before … this is a shame on Mamata Banerjee’s government which has institutionalized crime and corruption … this is only the tip of the iceberg and we hope more big fishes will be caught.”
CPI(M) State secretary Md Salim asked whether the TMC supremo sacrificed Chatterjee for her nephew Abhishek Banerjee in a trade-off with the BJP leadership.
“There is a sequence to it all … last week there was a meeting between CM and Dhankhar … then CBI chargesheet in coal scam excludes the name of Bhaipo (nephew) … then again Mamata decides to abstain from vice presidential elections thereby helping the BJP … and then Chatterjee is picked up by the ED … there is a sequential relationship among all these developments,” he said wondering why the ED would not act earlier and why cash was not recovered from banks in Bangkok, Dubai and elsewhere.
Pradesh Congress president Adhir Chowdhury said, “if the ED does not stop here and proceeds the way it has done now than in days to come most of the TMC ministers and even the ward commissioners will be behind the bar … the ED must question the petty councilors who won vehicles worth Rs 1 crore.”