Debangana Ray
Published on July 26, 2022 at 20:58 IST
West Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee, accused in the school jobs scam, was remanded to Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody by a special court on Monday.
The Court said from the material produced by ED, it appeared that offence was very serious and huge sums of money amounting to ₹21 crores, gold ornaments, and foreign currency were recovered during search at the premises of co-accused Arpita Mukherjee.
Since the case is at an early stage of investigation and opportunity should be given to the prosecuting agency to find out the truth, the Court rejected plea by Chatterjee and Mukherjee for bail and remanded them to ED custody till August 3.
Chatterjee has been accused of illegally giving jobs for the post of assistant teachers and primary teachers and generating huge sums of money. He has been charged under Sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
On Sunday, the Calcutta High Court had held a special sitting and set aside a Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s direction to medically examine Chatterjee at SSKM super speciality hospital in Calcutta and instead directed that he be examined at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Orissa’s Bhubaneshwar.
Subsequently, he was flown out to AIIMS on Monday and medically examined.
The special court the considered the medical report before handing over his custody to ED.