Rs 28 crore cash, gold worth over Rs 4 crore seized from Arpita’s second house: Bengal SSC scam

The Enforcement Directorate, which raided another house of arrested West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee’s close aide Arpita Mukherjee on Wednesday, has so far recovered Rs 27 crore 90 lakh in cash along with gold jewellery and bars worth Rs 4.31 crore, according to Zee sources. The ED has also seized unverified land papers in large numbers.

The second recovery came as the ED conducted fresh raids in three locations in and around Kolkata in its probe in the school jobs scam.

The huge cash of cash and gold was found five days after the agency seized more than Rs 21 crore in cash, besides jewellery and foreign exchange from another flat of Mukherjee, who was also arrested on July 23.

The Indian Express quoted sources saying that the amount recovered from Club Town Heights, an apartment complex in the Belgharia locality, could be more as the counting was underway till last night. The ED officials had to break into two flats linked to Mukherjee in Belgharia as the keys could not be found.

This came amid report claiming that Mukherjee told Enforcement Direcotrate that the arrested minister used her house to stash money and used it as a “mini bank”. She purportedly also admitted that the money came from kickbacks received for school job transfers and for helping colleges get recognition.

The ED has claimed that during its raids on premises linked to the minister and his aides, it found a list of 48 candidates will roll numbers for posts of primary teacher, documents related to the appointment of Group D staff, including admit cards for recruitment tests, along with a of candidates on the letterhead of a former TMC MLA.

Asked about the questioning of the minister and Mukherjee, the official said that though she has been “cooperative throughout”, Chatterjee is not.

The ED also questioned TMC MLA Manik Bhattacharya at its office in CGO Complex in Salt Lake area. His residential premise was searched by ED officials on July 22, after which he was asked to depose.

Meanwhile, the calls for dismissal of Chatterjee from the state cabinet grew louder as Leader of the opposition Suvendu Adhikari met Governor La Ganesan at the Raj Bhavan here, seeking that Chatterjee, who holds the industry, commerce and parliamentary affairs portfolios, be removed as minister.

Fuelling speculations about Chatterjee’s future as a cabinet minister, Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said it has to be seen how the senior TMC leader sheds the tag of being “influential” without quitting as a minister of several departments.

“What he will do is up to him. He holds several portfolios as a cabinet minister. How he will shed the tag of being an influential person is for him to answer,” he said.

The ED has described Chatterjee in the Calcutta High Court as an “influential person”.

Chatterjee earlier in the day countered repeated queries by the media on whether he would resign by retorting why he should do so.

Hours after Chatterjee’s arrest on July 23, Ghosh had told reporters that presently the party would not remove him as a cabinet minister or the secretary general of the TMC.

Amid speculations over his political future, Chatterjee’s official car, used by him for over 15 years, was on Tuesday deposited in the West Bengal Assembly.

The TMC mouthpiece “Jago Bangla” (Wake up, Bengal), of which he is the Editor, has also stopped naming Chatterjee either as a minister or the party’s secretary general.

The CBI, as directed by the Calcutta High Court, is looking into the alleged irregularities committed in the recruitment of Group-C and D staff as well as teachers in government-sponsored and ?aided schools on recommendations of the West Bengal School Service Commission. The ED is tracking the money trail in the scam.

Chatterjee was the education minister when the alleged irregularities took place.