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‘Not my money’: Partha Chatterjee on cash recovered from aide Arpita
“The money (recovered) is not mine,” Chatterjee told reporters as he stepped out of the vehicle while being taken to ESI Hospital at Joka near Kolkata for medical check-up as ordered by a special court that remanded him in ED custody till August 3.
Former West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee, who is in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate in connection with irregularities in school teacher recruitments, on Sunday claimed he has no source of income and the money recovered during raids at the properties of his alleged close aide Arpita Mukherjee does not belong to him.
“The money (recovered) is not mine,” Chatterjee told reporters as he stepped out of the vehicle while being taken to ESI Hospital at Joka near Kolkata for medical check-up as ordered by a special court that remanded him in ED custody till August 3.
When asked about the School Service Commission (SSC) scam and the ₹50 crore in cash seized from the Kolkata properties of Mukherjee, he said: “I have no income.”
ED officials familiar with the development, however, said that Arpita Mukherjee during her interrogation has alleged that Chatterjee and his men stashed the cash in her apartments and she was never allowed to enter those rooms. “More than six bank accounts with a cumulative sum of around ₹8 crore stashed in them have been traced. Mukherjee was the holder of most of these accounts,” said an ED official aware of the development, requesting anonymity.
When Chatterjee was asked if anybody was conspiring against him, the former Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader said: “You will get to know when the time comes.”
On Thursday, 69-year-old Chatterjee was removed as minister-in-charge of various departments and suspended from all TMC posts. A day later, he expressed unhappiness over the party’s decision while claiming he was a victim of conspiracy.
On Sunday, Mukherjee was also taken to the same hospital for checkup, but she did not talk to the reporters.
Contending that Chatterjee was himself responsible for his fate, the TMC leadership has taken exception to his claims.
“Why was he silent for the last few days after his arrest? Tomorrow he may say he does not know (Arpita) Mukherjee or his own identity,” TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said. “He has every right to approach the court and prove his innocence. The party has nothing to do with this scam.”
Chatterjee, the former TMC state general secretary, was arrested on July 23 after 27 hours of interrogation in connection with the alleged irregularities in the recruitment of hundreds of teachers and non-teaching staffs in government schools. Chatterjee was the state education minister from 2014 to 2021 and the alleged irregularities took place in 2018.
Arpita Mukherjee, the former minister’s close aide from whose flat over ₹21 crore in cash was seized during a raid on July 23, and Sukanta Acharya, Chatterjee’s personal secretary, have also been questioned in the case.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is probing the alleged irregularities in the recruitment of Group-C and -D staff, as well as teachers in government-sponsored and -aided schools on the recommendations of the West Bengal School Service Commission on the orders of the Calcutta high court. ED is looking into the money trail involved in the case.
The ED official quoted above, meanwhile, said that Mukherjee was allotted two Goods and Services Tax (GST) account numbers for running her businesses.
Though ED has so far raided three apartments and seized documents related to at least a dozen more properties, none was registered in the name of either Mukherjee or Chatterjee. The two apartments at Belgharia and the four apartments at the Haridevpur condominium are registered in the names of two companies, of which Mukherjee and her brother-in-law Kalyan Dhar are recorded as directors, according to ED.
Of the two companies, Sentry Engineering Private Ltd was registered on January 16, 2001, 10 years before the TMC came to power. The other one — Echhay Entertainment Private Ltd — was registered on October 29, 2014.
Mukherjee also owned four nail art studios in Kolkata and its outskirts, ED found after questioning her driver and people who knew her.
