Kolkata: Enforcement Directorate sleuths have been able to track sources of an additional amount of Rs 28 crore collected by private real estate promoter Ayan Sil in the alleged scam for recruitment of staff in different municipalities in West Bengal.
This amount, according to sources, is in addition to the earlier amount of Rs 12 crore that ED officials tracked after decoding one of the hard discs that they recovered during the course of a raid and search operations at Sil’s residence at Salt Lake in the northern outskirts of Kolkata.
So far, sources said, the ED had been able to track Rs 40 crore collected by Sil from these municipalities’ recruitment irregularities scam. The central agency sleuths, however, suspect that the amount could be much higher in the coming days.
Meanwhile, sources added, in face of interrogations Sil has claimed that he used to only receive around 20 per cent of the amount collected by him from prospective candidates as commission and the remaining amount were passed on to the influential people in the administrative structure.
ED sleuths are in the process of extracting the names of these influential people in the administrative system. “Some of the names he has already confessed and a list on this count has also been prepared and in the next In the next phase these influential persons might be summoned for questioning,” a central agency source said.
ED sources said that while this is the collection amount only from the municipalities’ recruitment irregularities, the central agency sleuths are yet to reach at the final calculation of proceeds collected by the arrested real estate promoter from the scam relating to recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in state-run schools.
As per initial estimates done by ED the collection made by Sil from the two scams combined will be well over Rs 100 crore.
The ED has already decided to file a separate case in the scam of recruitment irregularities in the municipalities. The ED counsel has already claimed at a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) such irregularities had been evident in several municipalities in the state and in that process around 5,000 people in workers’ and clerks’ grades were recruited against payments of crore of rupees.
(IANS)
