On Wednesday, Republic TV accessed documents that revealed a direct financial connection between accused Partha Chatterjee and Arpita Mukherjee. The documents stated that Mukherjee who denied accepting that money recovered from her apartment belonged to her, had bought 18 properties between 2011 to 2022 from the proceeds of the crime.
According to the reports, Chatterjee is a co-purchaser in one of the multiple properties with Mukherjee. The property in question is a block of land of around 7,300 square feet in Birbhum that was purchased in 2012 by the Chatterjee-Mukherjee duo.
So far, the ED has raided two of Mukherjee’s houses. Raids on Mukherjee’s Diamond City house in Tollygunge, South Kolkata, confiscated Rs 20 crore in cash in Indian and international currencies, as well as 2 kg of gold jewellery. Cash worth Rs 27.90 crore and 6 kilos of gold were found from a home in Belgharia, on the northern outskirts of Kolkata.
However, Chatterjee’s close aide Arpita claimed that the money recovered by ED from her apartments did not belong to her and that it was kept at her house in her absence. “The money does not belong to me, it was kept there in my absence”, she said. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had earlier recovered more than Rs 50 crores in cash from her houses in Kolkata. After Arpita’s statements on August 2, the ED again raided her other premises in Kolkata.
Former Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee, and his ‘close friend’ Arpita Mukherjee have been making headlines for their involvement in the multi-crore SSC recruitment scam case. During the ED raids, 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 Monalisa Das. Earlier, Arpita had told the ED that Partha Chatterjee used her flat as a ‘mini bank’.
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. Candidates who appeared for the State Level Selection Test (SLST) exam had alleged that many candidates who secured fewer marks ended up with higher ranks on the merit list. They further stated that the candidates who were not on the merit list were also sent appointment letters.
Also, in the year 2016, multiple allegations of corruption cropped up regarding the recruitment of Group C and Group D employees in secondary and higher secondary schools under the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education. The matter came to light in March this year after irregularities were noticed in the recruitment process of teachers in the state government schools.
