KOLKATA: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) scam, has now found a black diary belonging to Minister Partha Chatterjee which reportedly contains explosive details regarding the money used for giving bribes and the names of receivers.
The diary has been found from the minister’s close aide Arpita Mukherjee’s Diamond City South residence during raids by the central agency. According to sources, the black diary can unravel secrets related to the SSC exam. The diary belongs to the Department of Higher Education and School Education, Government of Bengal.
According to ED sources, 40 pages of the diary are full of details pertaining to the “illegal appointment of teachers against bribes”. The ED believes that the entries in that diary hold key to convicting West Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee and his close aide Arpita Mukherjee in the alleged recruitment scheme.
It may be recalled that Partha Chatterjee was arrested by the ED on Saturday. A city court had on Monday granted 10 days’ ED custody of the senior Trinamool Congress leader and his alleged associate Arpita Mukherjee, who was also arrested in connection with the scam. The ED found many disproportionate assets of Partha Chatterjee since his arrest, of which were three flats in West Bengal’s Diamond City.
The arrest of Partha Chatterjee followed Rs 21 crore in cash and jewellery worth above Rs 1 crore being recovered from the Kolkata residence of Arpita Mukherjee, a close aide of the former education minister. The ED raided Arpita Mukerjee’s house in connection with an alleged teacher recruitment scam in West Bengal. “The said amount is suspected to be proceeds of crime of the said SSC scam,” the probe agency had said in a statement.
During its probe, the ED sleuths also found that Partha Chatterjee had an air-conditioned apartment exclusively for his four pet dogs. This was found by the ED sleuths while segregating the huge properties and assets that have direct and indirect links with the former education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general, Partha Chatterjee.
Currently, the ED sleuths are trying to segregate such properties and assets in three categories — properties directly owned by Chatterjee, properties owned by him jointly with his close confidants or aides like Arpita Mukherjee and properties that he gifted to his aides.
While doing this segregation, the ED sleuths were quite amazed to come across a luxurious flat owned by Chatterjee, currently the state commerce & industries minister, which is dedicated to housing four pet dogs of the minister.
Incidentally, this pet- dedicated accommodation of the minister, is in the same posh Diamond City Complex at Tollygunge in South Kolkata that houses the residence of his close aide, Arpita Mukherjee, from where the ED recovered huge treasures in the forms of Indian and foreign currencies, gold ornaments, sale deeds of multiple flat and other expensive items.