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ED raids Bengal minister’s house, civic body heads in alleged municipal job scam
On April 21, Calcutta high court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the alleged civic body recruitment scam. ED initiated a parallel probe
Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday conducted marathon raids at 12 locations in West Bengal, including the house of food minister Rathin Ghosh, in connection with a recruitment scam that allegedly took place at multiple civic bodies between 2014 and 2018, officials of the federal agency said.
Escorted by central paramilitary force personnel, the ED teams simultaneously raided the house of the minister, and the chairpersons of the municipalities at Kamarhati, Baranagar, Madhyamgram, South Dum Dum, North Dum Dum and Panihati (all in North 24 Parganas district) and several officials. The raids continued beyond 7pm, and a bureaucrat’s home at Salt Lake on the eastern outskirts of Kolkata was also raided, added officials.
Ghosh’s house at Michael Nagar in North 24 Parganas was raided as he was chairman of the Madhyamgram municipality between 2014 and 2018. He did not comment on the raid.
On April 21, Calcutta high court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the alleged civic body recruitment scam. ED initiated a parallel probe.
Justice Gangopadhyay passed the April 21 order during a hearing on the bribe-for-job scam in the education department. A report placed before him by the ED said documents recovered from the home of a suspect – Ayan Sil – indicated that a similar scam took place in numerous civic bodies as well. Sil used to run a recruitment agency that was hired by several civic bodies, the ED told the court.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) government challenged the single-bench order but a division bench upheld it.
On June 7, CBI raided 16 locations and seized documents from multiple civic bodies in Nadia, Hooghly and North 24 Parganas districts and also the Salt Lake municipality.
Against this, the state government moved the Supreme Court.
On August 22, a Supreme Court division bench headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud dismissed the Bengal government’s petition challenging the Calcutta high court order which said CBI should probe the civic body recruitments and evidence collected by ED in this matter should be looked into.
“The Centre is using federal agencies to exert pressure on our government because Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cannot face TMC politically,” TMC state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar said.
Bharatiya Janata Party state president Sukanta Majumdar said: “The court ordered the investigation. It will reveal the massive corruption that took place in civic bodies across Bengal.”
