E-Paper
Court sends Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee to 2-day ED custody over school jobs scam
Partha Chatterjee was presented at the Bankshall Court in Kolkata hours after he was arrested by the ED after being questioned for around 26 hours in connection with an alleged scam in recruitment of teachers in state-run schools.
Bengal minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee was sent to the custody of the Enforcement Directorate for two days on Saturday.
Chatterjee was presented at the Bankshall Court in Kolkata hours after he was arrested by the ED after being questioned for around 26 hours in connection with an alleged scam in recruitment of teachers in state-run schools.
Chatterjee, who was the state education minister when the scam took place, will be produced in a special ED court on Monday morning.
Chatterjee's lawyer said the minister was not feeling well and he had demanded proper medical facilities for him at the ED's custody. “Partha Chatterjee is not feeling well. He has developed heartache. We demanded that proper medical facilities should be given to him if ED's custody is granted,” Somnath Mukherjee, Chatterjee's lawyer, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Chatterjee was not cooperating with the ED who were questioning him since Friday morning, an ED officer earlier said.
The federal agency had also detained Chatterjee's close aide Arpita Mukherjee, from whose residence ₹21 crore in cash was seized. More than 20 mobile phones were also seized from Mukherjee's premises, the purpose and use of which is being ascertained, the ED said.
Among others whose properties were raided as part of the investigation included Manik Bhattacharya, TMC MLA and former president of the state board for primary education, board secretary Ratna Chakraborty Bagchi, former advisor of the School Service Commission SP Sinha and West Bengal Board of Secondary Education president Kalyanmoy Ganguly.
