India

Mamta’s minister in ED’s custody

Kolkata. Partha Chatterjee, the number two minister of Mamata Banerjee’s government, has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate, ED. Partha Chatterjee was questioned by the ED for nearly 24 hours and arrested on Saturday morning after Rs 20 crore cash was recovered from the house of one of his close aide Arpita Mukherjee. After his arrest, the ED produced him in the court, where the court sent him to ED custody for two days. Central Reserve Police Force, CRPF has been deployed at Partha Chatterjee’s house.

The Enforcement Directorate has taken this action in the teacher recruitment scam. In this sequence, the ED raided Arpita Mukherjee’s house. Arpita Mukherjee has also been arrested by the ED. The central agency had on Friday recovered over Rs 20 crore in cash from Arpita’s house. However, after the ED arrested the most powerful minister of the state government, Partha Chatterjee, he got his medical test done at a hospital in Kolkata. After this, questions and answers were made to him by taking him to the Kolkata office.

In the afternoon of Saturday, the ED had sought remand by presenting him in the court, after which the court sent Mukherjee to the remand of the investigating agency for two days. There has also been a political controversy over the arrest of Partha Chatterjee. West Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee has expressed displeasure that he was not informed of the arrest. He said- It is the duty of the ED to inform the Speaker about the arrest of any MLA. Till now I have not received any information about the arrest of Partha Chatterjee. It is wrong to arrest them without informing me.

It is worth noting that in West Bengal, teachers were recruited in 2014 and 2016. Alleging rigging in the appointment, two candidates had filed a petition in the High Court. The High Court had ordered a CBI inquiry into the matter. Partha Chatterjee was questioned by the CBI on April 25 and May 18. He was the education minister of the state from 2014 to 2021. After interrogation, CBI filed a money laundering complaint in this case, after which the ED started investigation in this case.

On Friday, several ED teams simultaneously raided the places of his close friends including Partha Chatterjee. According to sources, during the raid, the ED team got information about Arpita Mukherjee. ED got 20 crore cash from Arpita’s house. After such a huge recovery from Arpita’s house, an ED team reached Partha Chatterjee’s house at around 11 pm on Friday night. He was arrested on Saturday morning after an overnight interrogation.

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