Partha Chatterjee at a hospital in Kolkata, on Sunday. (Express Photo)The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday interrogated former minister and now suspended senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Partha Chatterjee and his associate Arpita Mukherjee for hours in connection with the school staff recruitment scam.
Sources said the agency is trying to ascertain the source of money amounting to crores deposited in Arpita’s bank accounts. Cash, gold and other valuables worth more than Rs 50 crore had already been seized from her two flats earlier.
Also, the family members and relatives of the two, particularly Partha’s son-in-law, are under the ED’s scanner.
An official said, “Both of them will be taken for medical examination tomorrow (Tuesday) again. On Wednesday, they will be produced in court. So far, Arpita has been cooperating in the probe while Partha Chatterjee continues to be evasive.”
Subscriber Only Stories
The agency is likely to seek extension of their custody, it is learnt.
According to the ED, Arpita was director of three companies — Symbiosis Merchants Private Limited, Sentry Engineering Private Limited, and Arpita Echhay Entertainment Private Limited — which are being investigated. She became director of two of the companies in 2011 and third in 2014.
Sources said Chatterjee got to know Arpita since he became minister for the first time.
Arpita used the address of Diamond City, Tollygunj, as a director of Sentry Engineering. Her flat in Club Town Heights in Belgharia was used as the registered address of the other two companies. The officials have already sought CCTV footages of her flat to check who used to visit her. On Saturday, Partha Chatterjee had claimed that the money recovered did not belong to him.
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
First published on: 02-08-2022 at 04:41:28 am