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Abhishek Banerjee’s wife Rujira questioned for 8 hours by ED
TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee’s wife Rujira has been questioned by CBI and ED earlier in the coal smuggling case
KOLKATA: Rujira Banerjee, wife of Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee, was questioned for more than eight hours on Wednesday by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with money laundering charges linked to irregularities in recruitment in the state education department, officials of the federal agency said.
The education department case is linked to a similar corruption that took place at several civic bodies between 2014 and 2018, ED told the Calcutta high court on April 21.
Rujira Banerjee, who has been questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation and ED in the coal smuggling case in the past, was summoned to the ED office at Salt Lake on the eastern outskirts of Kolkata to face questions in the recruitment case.
Officials said that acting on orders of the Calcutta high court, they separately summoned Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s wife and his parents between October 6 and 11 for questioning.
Abhishek Banerjee’s parents, Amit and Lata Banerjee, did not appear for questioning citing health reasons.
Rujira Banerjee arrived at the ED office on Wednesday morning and left around 7.30pm. She was questioned in two phases, an ED official said on condition of anonymity.
Several TMC leaders, including former education minister Partha Chatterjee, are in judicial custody in this case.
Rujira Banerjee and her parents are directors of a Kolkata-based company called Leaps and Bounds which is under scanner. ED raided the company’s office on August 21 and 22.
After the raid, ED said: “Abhishek Banerjee, MP from TMC, is the chief executive officer (CEO) of M/s Leaps and Bounds Private Limited and was also a director in the company from April 2012 to January 2014.”
The raid was conducted in connection with the bribe-for-job scam, the ED statement said.
Calcutta high court judge Amrita Sinha, who is hearing the bribe-for-job case, pulled up the ED during a hearing on September 25 and asked why the probe status report filed by the agency did not have details of properties owned by Leaps and Bounds and its directors.
TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said Rujira Banerjee was summoned because the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was using federal agencies for political gains. “Abhishek has become a thorn for the BJP. It is harassing him and his family because it cannot fight him politically,” Ghosh said.
ED questioned Abhishek Banerjee in the bribe-for-job case on September 13, the day the coordination committee of the coalition of opposition parties held its first meeting. The coalition leaders, who met in Delhi, kept an empty chair at the venue to symbolically mark Banerjee’s presence.
Banerjee moved the Calcutta high court earlier this month seeking the quashing of the enforcement case information report (ECIR) filed by ED against him. An ECIR is equivalent to a first information report (FIR). On September 22, justice Tirthankar Ghosh said the ED cannot take any coercive action against him unless it finds evidence indicating his involvement.
Bengal BJP’s chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said: “The investigation, the questioning et all were ordered by the high court which is monitoring the case. The court has even pulled up ED for acting slow. BJP has nothing to do with any of this.”
