The Enforcement Directorate has unearthed another massive corruption scandal- the SSC recruitment scam, brewing in West Bengal involving the state’s Commerce and Industries Minister and Mamata Banerjee’s close confidante, Partha Chatterjee and his close aide Arpita Mukherjee.
#WATCH | West Bengal: Hugh amount of cash, amounting to at least Rs 15 Crores, recovered from the residence of Arpita Mukherjee at Belgharia.
— ANI (@ANI) July 27, 2022
She is a close aide of West Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee. pic.twitter.com/7MMFsjzny1
In the raids being carried out in connection with the ongoing investigation of the School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment scam, the federal agency has, thus far, recovered a little over Rs 50 crores in cash and Rs 4.31 crore worth of gold from multiple locations linked to Arpita Mukherjee, a close associate of arrested cabinet minister Partha Chatterjee.
Cash of Rs 27.9 crores in cash, gold, and jewellery worth Rs 4.31 crores has been recovered till now from the residence of Arpita Mukherjee, a close aide of West Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee: Sources pic.twitter.com/ZWJuccciw8
— ANI (@ANI) July 28, 2022
Partha Chatterjee was the former education minister in the state in the Mamata Banerjee government.
According to reports, the ED carried out a fresh raid at Mukherjee’s apartment complex in Kolkata’s Belgharia locality on Wednesday. They left this morning with 10 trunks of cash amounting to Rs 29 crores, besides 5 kg of jewellery and gold bars. The operation continued for 18 long hours. This was the second raid conducted by the agency. During the first raid on 22 July, a day before her arrest, the agency had recovered a whopping Rs 21.20 crores from the actor’s residence.
Besides the cash, jewellery worth Rs 20 lakhs, 22 mobile phones and Rs 54 lakh worth of foreign currency, a number of other incriminating documents, records, details of dubious companies and electronic devices, were also seized by the central agency.
On Tuesday, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) revealed that it recovered two black journals from the residence of Arpita Mukherjee in Kolkata which bears the details of the alleged School Service Commission (SSC) scam in West Bengal. One of the journals recovered from Mukherjee’s Diamond City South apartment has all the details of the West Bengal government’s department of higher education and school education.
According to reports, the black diary has 40 pages which consist of entries about the illegal appointment of teachers against bribes, collection of cash, and other details.
Besides, the agency also unearthed many disproportionate assets, including the two flats in an apartment in Belgharia in Kolkata, from where the cash has been recovered, which the minister reportedly gifted to Arpita Mukherjee. It was discovered that in addition to the apartment he stays in, Partha Chatterjee owns three other properties in south Kolkata’s Tollygunge area. One of these flats is used exclusively for his dogs.
Notably, on Monday (July 25), a special court remanded Trinamool Congress (TMC) Minister Partha Chatterjee and actress Arpita Mukherjee to Enforcement Directorate custody for a period of 10 days.
The duo was arrested in connection to the School Service Commission (SSC) scam case. Arpita was arrested on July 23 this year, hours after the arrest of TMC Minister Partha Chatterjee in the same case. While remanding the duo in ED custody, the Court noted that the material produced before it by the central agency suggested that the offence was very serious.
It has been found that Partha Chatterjee owns a large number of flats, many of which he has gifted to his ‘close aides’ including Arpita Mukherjee and another woman named Monalisa Das. Arpita Chatterjee has told the ED that Partha Chatterjee used her flat as a ‘mini bank’. It is suspected that the flats gifted to Monalisa Das also were used for the same purpose.
Notably, Partha Chatterjee earned the majority of the money discovered hidden in Arpita Mukherjee’s apartments through embezzlement during the recruitment of Group-C and D staff members as well as teachers in government-sponsored and aided schools on recommendations of the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC). At the time of the alleged irregularities, Chatterjee served as the state’s education minister.
‘Mistakes happen’: Mamata Banerjee reacts to Partha Chatterjee’s involvement in the SSC scam
Meanwhile, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, under whose nose the alleged multi-crore scam took place, has reacted to the involvement of her minister in the scam by stating ‘mistakes happen’. Addressing a public gathering, the Trinamool Congress supremo further said that if found guilty, those who committed the mistake ‘should be subjected to punishment’.
Despite the seizure of an enormous amount of cash from the house of Arpita Mukherjee, a close aide of Partha Chatterjee, TMC leader and minister in the Mamata government, the latter continued to call the action by the federal agency a political vendetta.
Addressing a programme of Kolkata-based firm Titagarh Wagons on July 27, Banerjee asserted that businessmen, along with Opposition leaders, were being “threatened by agencies at the behest of the ruling BJP” at the Centre.
“I don’t have a problem if agencies function impartially. These should not be used to malign parties,” she said.
She further claimed that the media is running ‘malicious campaign’ against her party. “When you run a big institution, there can be mistakes. If anyone has committed any mistake, and it is proven legally, he or she must be punished. But I am against any malicious media campaign. Media is playing the role of kangaroo (court). A senior judge also said that recently,” said the WB CM.
Interestingly, the WB CM Mamata Banerjee had, earlier, denied links with Arpita Mukherjee. Her statement came soon after BJP released a video in which she was seen interacting with Arpita Mukherjee.
What is the Bengal Teacher SSC recruitment scam?
The West Bengal Teacher’s recruitment scam, more commonly referred to as the SSC scam, looks into the recruitment process conducted through the State Level Selection Test (SLT) conducted by SSC from 2014 to 2016.
The West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) announced in 2014 that teachers would be hired at state-run schools in West Bengal through the State Level Selection Test (SLST), which is when the alleged scam first surfaced. In 2016, the hiring process got underway. At that time, Partha Chatterjee was the Minister-in-Charge of the West Bengal Department of Higher Education and School Education. Nevertheless, a number of complaints were submitted to the Calcutta High Court citing irregularities in the hiring procedure.
The petitioners alleged that many examinees who got lesser marks ranked high on the merit list. Several claims also surfaced regarding the receipt of appointment letters by some applicants who weren’t even on the merit list.
In a separate, but related instance, the Bengal government had in 2016 sent the School Service Commission (SSC) notification for the hiring of 13,000 Group D staff in government-run or aided schools. Interestingly, the tenure of the panel responsible for said recruitment expired in 2019, but several petitioners alleged that recruitment had taken place despite the expiry of the panel’s tenure and as many as 25 persons were allegedly appointed by the WBBSE.
However, when the case came up for hearing, the petitioners alleged that not 25 but over 500 people were appointed after the SSC panel’s expiration and were now receiving salaries from the state government.
Soon a CBI probe was launched in the case following an order by the Calcutta High Court bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay. The court ordered the agency to interrogate the former chairman of the SSC advisory committee, SP Sinha, and other former members of the panel.
The court had asked the CBI to file a report after interrogating the former members. In April, the CBI also registered an FIR against West Bengal Directorate of School Education former deputy director Alok Kumar Sarkar and unidentified officials of the SSC.
In May this year, the Central Investigation Bureau (CBI) filed an FIR against West Bengal Education Minister Paresh Adhikari and his daughter Ankita Adhikari. The case was registered after the father-daughter duo skipped the CBI summon deadline that was set by the Calcutta High Court. Adhikari was summoned for illegally recruiting teachers in government-aided schools and also for allotting a job to his daughter despite her absence from the merit list.
In the same month, CBI also quizzed Partha Chatterjee as the alleged recruitment scam had taken place when he was the education minister.
Later, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) also joined CBI to jointly investigated the scam. While the CBI is probing the criminal aspect of the recruitment scam, the ED is investigating the money laundering aspects.
As a part of the inquiry into the money laundering aspect of the SSC recruiting scandal, ED has now raided Partha Chatterjee’s premises and arrested him for swindling money worth crores in the form of bribes taken during his tenure as the state education minister.
