After approximately 26 hours of questioning in relation to an alleged recruitment scam in state-run schools, Partha Chatterjee was taken into custody.

Partha Chatterjee, the minister of commerce and industry for West Bengal, was detained by the Enforcement Directorate on Saturday in Kolkata for allegedly taking part in the teacher recruitment scam.
After around 26 hours of questioning in relation to the investigation, Chatterjee, who was the state education minister at the time of the scam, was taken into custody. He was brought to the ED’s office in the Salt Lake City area’s CGO Complex.
“Our officers had been interviewing him since Friday morning, but he was not cooperative. He would appear in court during the day, an ED representative told news outlet PTI.

Arpita Mukherjee, who is allegedly close to former West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee, was the subject of several raids on Friday, according to the ED, during which it claimed to have recovered approximately Rs 20 crore from her.
“During the course of searches, the ED recovered enormous cash worth roughly Rs 20 crore from Arpita Mukherjee’s private property, who is closely associated with Shri Partha Chatterjee. The aforementioned sum is thought to be the revenues of the SSC Scam. When counting cash using cash counting machines, the search crew is assisted by bank employees.  A total of more than 20 mobile phones have also been recovered from the premises of Ms. Arpita Mukherjee, the purpose and use of which is being ascertained,” read a statement issued by the ED.

The ED tweeted images of money reportedly found in Mukherjee’s south Kolkata home and stated: “ED is carrying out search operations at different premises pertaining to recruitment fraud in the West Bengal School Service Commission and West Bengal Primary Education Board.”

The other people whose houses were searched included Partha Chatterjee, currently minister for commerce and industry; Paresh C Adhikary, minister of state for education; Manik Bhattacharya, MLA and former president of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education; P K Bandopadhyay, officer on special duty to Chatterjee; Sukanta Acharjee, private secretary to Chatterjee; Chandan Mondal alias Ranjan, an alleged agent in the scam; Kalyanmay Bhattacharya, son-in-law of Partha Bhattacharya; Krishna C Adhikary, a relative of Kalyanmay; Dr S P Sinha, advisor to the School Service Commission; Kalyanmoy Ganguly, former president of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education; Saumitra Sarkar, former president of the West Bengal Central School Service Commission; and Alok Kumar Sarkar, deputy director of the school education department.