Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is now probing if arrested West Bengal minister Jyotipriya Mallick had some connections with the municipalities’ recruitment irregularities besides his alleged involvement in the ration distribution case for which he is presently in ED custody.
The ED became suspicious after studying the patterns of the cases, geographical locations of the municipalities and the peak time of the irregularities.
The central agency had identified 10 municipalities where the recruitment related irregularities had been maximum. Out of these, seven are in North 24 Parganas district.
Going by the pattern of the recruitment irregularities, the ED has noted that the cases took place when Mallick was the Trinamool President of North 24 Parganas district, besides holding the ministerial portfolio.
Mallick being the district President of the ruling party, ED suspects that it is quite possible that he had an indirect influence on the functioning of the municipalities and hence the agency is probing this angle as well.
As per initial findings in the municipalities’ recruitment case, the central agency has traced a particular pattern which is uniform among all these 10 municipalities.
In most cases, the number of recruitment was more than the sanctioned posts and these additional recruitments involved exchange of huge amounts of money.
Already the ED has conducted a series of raids at the offices of these 10 municipalities. The chairmen and vice-chairmen of these civic bodies have also been interrogated a number of times.
As per an agency official, the entire chain of cases of money laundering in West Bengal is like a labyrinth where investigation into one case is leading to irregularities in other cases.
The ED’s probe into the multi-crore cash for school jobs case resulted in the surfacing of the municipalities’ recruitment case. Now a fresh probe will be conducted to find out if the prime accused in the ration distribution case had some links with the municipalities’ recruitment case.
(IANS)
