New Delhi, 23 Jul (PTI): West Bengal Industry and Commerce Minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday in connection with its investigation into the alleged school jobs scam, an official of the agency said.
\nHe was later produced before a judge in the Bankshall court here and sent to the ED custody for two days.
\nThe Trinamool Congress secretary general, who was the state education minister when the alleged irregularities took place, was arrested after around 26 hours of grilling in his residence in connection with the probe since Friday morning.
\nED also arrested Chatterjee\u2019s close aide Arpita Mukherjee, from whose property Rs 21 crore in cash was seized during a raid on Friday, the agency official said.
\n\u201cChatterjee was not cooperating with our officers who were questioning him since Friday morning. He will be produced before a court during the day,\u201d the ED official told PTI.
\nThe minister, who also holds the parliamentary affairs portfolio, was taken to an ESI Hospital where a medical check-up was conducted on him.
\nWhile coming out of the hospital, Chatterjee, when asked by reporters whether he tried to contact Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, said, \u201cI tried, but could not connect (to her).\u201d Later, his counsel told reporters that as it is a Saturday, he would be again produced before the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court on Monday.
\nHis lawyer argued in the court that since no unaccounted money and documents have been found at his residential premises but the house of Mukherjee, he should be granted bail, which the ED lawyers of the directorate opposed.
\nThe court remanded him to the custody of the ED for two days.
\nWhile Mukherjee was whisked away by ED officials in a car, she told reporters: \u201cI have done no wrong, it is a conspiracy by the BJP to malign me.\u201d Chatterjee, who was the state education minister from 2014 to 2021, was grilled by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in April and May this year in connection with the scam.
\nThe TMC, which maintained a stoic silence on the issue, later in the evening called an emergency meeting at TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee\u2019s office to decide on the party\u2019s stand on the issue.
\n\u201cWe are keeping a close watch on the situation. We will come out with a statement at an appropriate time,\u201d TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said.
\nSpeaker Biman Banerjee said that the ED must inform the speaker before arresting a member of the assembly.
\n\u201cThe ED or CBI, while arresting any MP or MLA, has to inform the speaker of the Lok Sabha or the state assembly. This is the constitutional norm. But I have not received any communication from the ED about Chatterjee\u2019s arrest,\u201d he said.
\nThe opposition BJP went hammer and tongs over the development and demanded a reply from the chief minister.
\n\u201cThe CM must issue a statement over the arrest of a cabinet minister. The arrest proves that the TMC is knee-deep in corruption,\u201d BJP national vice president Dilip Ghosh said.
\nBJP state president Sukanta Majumdar said Chatterjee\u2019s arrest reflects the \u201cBengal model of development\u201d practised by TMC leaders.
\n\u201cThe seizure of Rs 21 crore in cash is just the tip of the iceberg. The CM should come out with a reply on this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi, 23 Jul (PTI): West Bengal Industry and Commerce Minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday in connection with its investigation into the alleged school jobs scam, an official of the agency said. He was later produced before a judge in the Bankshall court here and sent to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-196153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-national"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}