NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate has arrested Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee in connection with the teacher recruitment scam case.
The Trinamool minister is being taken to CGO complex at Salt Lake where the ED office is located. He will be produced in court today. Chatterjee’s arrest came after a marathon interrogation that began on Friday morning.
Arpita Mukherjee, a close aide of the minister has also been detained. ED officials had recovered Rs 20 crore in unaccounted cash from Mukherjee’s residence in south Kolkata a day back.
Chatterjee was the state education minister when the scam took place and ED is probing the money laundering aspect of those allegedly involved in it.
The agency on Friday carried out simultaneous raids in the houses of former advisor of the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) Shanti Prasad Sinha, ex-president of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education Kalyanmoy Ganguly and nine others.
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.