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KOLKATA : Partha Chatterjee, a senior Trinamool Congress leader and West Bengal minister of Industry, Commerce and Enterprise, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) after they raided his house in connection to a teacher recruitment scam case. ED also recovered ₹21 crore from Arpita Mukherjee, a close aide of Chatterjee. A local court on Saturday extended the custody of Partha Chatterjee with ED for two more days.
On Saturday, senior leader and Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim has announced that they are looking into the matter and would issue a statement on their stance once the verdict is out. They part on Sunday, however, demanded a time-bound investigation in the case against Partha.
TMC also said that they would not interfere politically if any leader was found to have done anything wrong.
Partha had been the education minister when the alleged scam 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. Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee was the state education minister from 2014 to 2021, around the time when the scam also took place.
The ED has recovered crores of rupees in cash during the 22 July raids that were conducted at least at a dozen of places. ED is probing the money trail involved in a teacher recruitment scam at government-sponsored and -aided schools.
TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said that that it had no connection with Arpita Mukherjee from whose possession the huge amount of cash was recovered.
"The party demands time-bound investigation in the case," he said, maintaining that investigations by central agencies in some cases have been going on for many years.
The CBI has been investigating the multi-crore Saradha chit fund case since 2014, while the Narada tapes case, which unfolded ahead of 2016 elections, was also yet to reach any conclusion.
Ghosh said that the delay in completion of probe processes was not acceptable and that opposition parties “will use it as a tool to cast aspersions" against the TMC.
"If the ED produces any proof of its allegations and the court accepts it, the TMC and the government will initiate steps against any leader, however big he may be," Ghosh said, adding that the law will take its own course.
"This woman is in no way related to Trinamool Congress," he said about Mukherjee, who is also known to have acted in Bengali films.
"It is not a matter of TMC; it is the responsibility of those whose names have come up or their lawyer to speak on the issue, the party has no relation with it," Ghosh said.
Alleging that TMC leaders were being targeted, he claimed that Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim was arrested by the CBI in 2021 in the Narada sting tapes case, but no action was taken against Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, who is also an accused in the matter.
"Does it mean being in BJP makes one above the law?" he asked.