The MLA represents the Palashipara meeting constituency. (FILE)
Kolkata:
Trinamool Congress MLA Manik Bhattacharya was arrested early this morning after being questioned in a single day by the Enforcement Directorate within the alleged lecturers’ recruitment rip-off in West Bengal. He’s the second Trinamool chief to be arrested within the rip-off. The primary was former Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee, who was arrested in July after piles of money had been recovered from the properties linked to his shut aide Arpita Mukherjee.
The Enforcement Directorate or ED, which is investigating the cash path within the case, claims the sacked minister’s WhatsApp chat historical past had a dialog about Mr Bhattacharya’s involvement in gathering bribes.
The MLA, who represents the Palashipara meeting constituency, can be taken for a medical check and produced in a court docket later immediately.
Mr Bhattacharya’s arrest comes simply weeks after the Supreme Court docket prolonged the interim safety granted to him within the case until additional orders. Whereas issuing the order on September 30, the court docket had directed him to cooperate with the investigation company.
Manik Bhattacharya was faraway from the publish of the president of Bengal’s Main Training Board after his title cropped up within the probe after the arrest of Mr Chatterjee from the get together after money recoveries had been made by the ED from the house of Ms Arpita Mukherjee.
The ED alleges that Mr Chatterjee and Ms Mukherjee laundered cash by indulging in prison conspiracy for illegally giving instructing publish jobs, on suggestions by the Faculty Service Fee (SSC), in state-sponsored and-aided faculties, and generated big proceeds of crime. The alleged irregularities befell when Chatterjee was the training minister.
Following the arrest, he was stripped of his portfolios. The ruling Trinamool Congress additionally suspended him.
Earlier, the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI named 16 accused, together with Partha Chatterjee and former SSC advisor Shanti Prasad Sinha. The investigating company, on the course of the Calcutta Excessive Court docket, is probing alleged irregularities within the lecturers’ recruitment.
