PremiumListen to this article |
The Calcutta High Court on Sunday directed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials to airlift Trinamool Congress senior leader Partha Chatterjee to AIIMS Bhubaneswar on Monday, where the doctors will examine him. The High Court also asked that the minister be produced virtually before special court in Kolkata. Chatterjee has been arrested by ED in a case relating to teacher recruitment scam that took place in 2014.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Sunday informed the Calcutta High Court that Partha Chatterjee, Trinamool Congress senior leader, was behaving like a ‘don’ in the state-run SSKM hospital.
The Calcutta High Court said that specialist doctors will examine the West Bengal minister once he is taken to AIIMS Bhubaneswar in an air ambulance on Monday morning. The court directed that the minister be produced before a special ED court in Kolkata through virtual mode at 4 PM on Monday.
The ED official told the Calcutta High Court's single judge bench of Justice Bibek Chaudhuri the the West Bengal minister of Industry, Commerce and Enterprise is faking his illness.
Chatterjee was arrested by the ED on Saturday after the officials conducted a raid on almost a dozen different places and recovered ₹21 crore on Friday. A local court granted ED a two day extended custody of the TMC senior leader.
"The order regarding his hospitalisation passed by the lower court is a nullity. The order has been passed without giving us a hearing. It is a review of the earlier order that tells us to get him checked regularly. Review is barred, there is no jurisdiction", Additional Solicitor General told the court.
"Please also look at the gross facts. This is a case of corruption at the highest level. The lives of deserving candidates have been sacrificed. A top-ranking minister is part of this. We need to interrogate him to find the money trail. We can interrogate him only within the first 15 days but he is very influential. He has got himself sent to a hospital where he is the king. He is feigning illness," the official added.
Partha Chatterjee had been the education minister when the alleged scam in teacher recruitment took place in 2014. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the directive orders of the Calcutta High Court has been investigating the criminal angle into the School Service Commission (SSC) teacher recruitment scam.
The West Bengal government conducted State Level Selection Test (SLST) in 2014 and issued a notification for appointment of the teachers in the state-run schools. The recruitment process started in 2016.
However, a number of petitions were filed in the Calcutta High Court in suspected anomalies in the recruitment process. ED is probing the money trail involved in a teacher recruitment scam at government-sponsored and -aided schools.