West Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee — both arrested in connection with the teacher recruitment scam last week — were on Monday remanded in ED Custody till August 3. The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing the alleged scam, prayed for 14 days’ custody of Chatterjee before a special court of the agency, pointing out that AIIMS-Bhubaneswar, after a check-up, ruled out the minister’s hospital admission.
In its submission, the ED said that Chatterjee had taken admission in Bengal government-run SSKM hospital faking illness and the agency could not question him during the two-day remand granted by a chief metropolitan magistrate on Saturday.
The ED, on the other hand, had pleaded for Mukherjee’s custody for 13 days. Mukherjee’s counsel prayed that a short custody be given for her and that her security be ensured in the wake of Sunday’s accident, when a vehicle hit a car of the convoy ferrying her from court to the agency’s CGO complex.
The Calcutta High Court had on Sunday directed ED to take Chatterjee to AIIMS-Bhubaneswar by air ambulance for his medical check-up.
Chatterjee will be flown back to Kolkata on Tuesday morning, instead of today. He is scheduled to arrive at Kolkata airport at around 7 am, and then would be taken to the ED headquarters in Salt Lake. Chatterjee, who was the state education minister from 2014 to 2021, was arrested last Saturday, with ED officials saying that he was not cooperating with the interrogators who were questioning him since Friday morning. He was grilled by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in April and May this year in connection with the scam.
Chatterjee’s aide Arpita was arrested hours after his arrest and during searches on her residential premises, the ED found cash amounting to Rs 21 crore and other valuables. The agency had said the wealth recovered was suspected “to be the proceeds of crime of the said SSC scam”.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, breaking her silence on Chatterjee’s arrest, on Monday said that she doesn’t support corruption and that she won’t mind life imprisonment awarded to anyone proven guilty.
“If someone is found guilty, the person should be punished accordingly, be it life imprisonment. I won’t mind,” the CM said addressing an award function of the state government in Kolkata.
Banerjee, however, slammed the opposition for a “malicious campaign” targetting her. Referring to the video shared by the BJP, in which she was seen interacting with Arpita Mukherjee, the CM said the Trinamool Congress has no links with her.
“The party has no relation with that lady, neither do I know her. I will not be a part of the media trial that is going on. If I visit several Durga Puja pandals and interact with people there, does it mean I know them personally? No. And if that is the case, what about Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, who were clicked with BJP leaders?” she asked.
(With PTI inputs)
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