Kolkata: Former West Bengal education minister and ex-Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee on Wednesday filed a fresh bail petition in the Calcutta High Court in connection with the multi-crore cash-for-school job case.
The hearing on the matter is likely on May 19. The fresh bail petition by Chatterjee in the matter comes at a time when a similar bail petition is already being heard at the Supreme Court’s division bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice N. Kotiswar Singh.
During a hearing in the matter last week, the apex court division bench directed the West Bengal government to give the necessary clearance within two weeks so that the trial process against Chatterjee and other state government employees accused in the school job cases registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) can be started.
The CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had been conducting parallel probes in the school job cases. The trial process in the ED-registered cases had already started at a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata.
Chatterjee was first arrested by the ED official from his residence in South Kolkata in July 2022, and since then, he has been behind bars. Later, the CBI also showed him as arrested.
During this arrest, the ED officials also arrested his close associate, Arpita Mukherjee after they recovered huge cash and gold from her twin residences, which were reportedly the proceeds of crime in the school job cases.
Mukherjee is, however, currently out on bail.
Both the ED and CBI, in their chargesheets, have identified Chatterjee as the principal mastermind in the cases.
Recently, his son-in-law, Kalyanmoy Bhattacharya, turned approver against him and gave a confidential statement in the court in the matter.
Thereafter, Bhattacharya’s name was removed from the list of accused individuals in the chargesheet of the ED.
(IANS)
