The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday submitted a charge sheet before a special PMLA court here against former West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee and his alleged close associate Arpita Mukherjee in the School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment scam. The agency has claimed in the charge sheet before the court that approximately Rs 100 crore has so far been recovered in the form of cash and assets of Mukherjee.
The charge sheet was filed on the 58th day of their arrest under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Chatterjee and Mukherjee were held on July 23 by the ED in connection with its probe into the money trail involved in the school recruitment scam. The 172-page charge sheet was filed before the PMLA court at the Bankshall Court here against eight entities -- two being Chatterjee and Mukherjee and the other six being the companies that were allegedly found to have been floated in connection with the case, ED counsel Abhijit Bhadra said.
According to the charge sheet, there are 43 witnesses in the case. The documents attached with the charge sheet run into as many as 146,043 pages, Bhadra stated. The ED has said that it has seized Rs 49.80 crore in cash, apart from jewelry and gold bars from flats owned by Chatterjee's alleged close aide Arpita Mukherjee, as also documents of properties. The court allowed ED prayer for further investigation as well as its plea to file a supplementary charge sheet at a later stage.
Claiming that the former minister is innocent, his counsels had earlier said before the court that nothing was recovered from Chatterjee. The ED has alleged that Chatterjee and Mukherjee have been found to be involved in the commission of offense of money laundering by indulging in criminal conspiracy with the objective of giving jobs to ineligible candidates – names of whom were allegedly recommended by the state's School Service Commission (SSC) to the West Bengal Board of School Education.
It has also been stated by the agency that Mukherjee’s close association with family members of Chatterjee has been found in a company registered at an address owned by the former at Belghoria, on the northern outskirts of Kolkata, from where Rs 27.90 crore in cash was also seized. In another company, APA Utility Services, the two accused were found to have equal 50 - 50 shareholdings. The agency counsel said that 31 LIC insurance policies of Mukherjee, in which the former minister is a nominee, have also been seized.
Chatterjee was relieved of his ministerial duties by the Mamata Banerjee government shortly after his arrest, while the TMC, too, removed him from the posts he held in the party, including that of the secretary-general. He held the education portfolio when the scam was allegedly pulled off. He is at present in the custody of the CBI for his questioning in connection with the scam.
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