The Enforcement Directorate detained Trinamool Congress’ youth wing leader Kuntal Ghosh in connection with the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment scam case, on Saturday (January 21).
After questioning him and searching his two flats in Kolkata’s northern suburbs on Friday, the authorities made the arrest.
The CBI and the Enforcement Directorate have been carrying out the probe in the West Bengal recruitment case for months now.
Reportedly, when the CBI called TMC’s Tapas Mondal to be interrogated in Kolkata earlier this month, he identified Kuntal Ghosh as one of those who had collected money from the job aspirants. Shantanu Banerjee, another party leader, was reportedly also identified by Mondal.
The CBI had questioned Ghosh earlier as well. The agency, conducting a separate investigation into the scam, summoned him for interrogation after Tapas Mondal claimed that Kuntal Ghosh had collected Rs 19 crore from job seekers.
Meanwhile, the residence of Hooghly, TMC youth leader Santanu Banerjee, was also searched earlier by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the scam.
“The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had earlier arrested former education minister (and TMC leader) Partha Chatterjee and traced cash and property work of more than ₹100 crores. And now, Mondal is making fresh claims. We are probing it,” a CBI officer was quoted a saying in a Hindustan Times report.
Investigations into the Bengal recruitment fraud, involving the state’s Commerce and Industries Minister and close confidant of Mamata Banerjee, Partha Chatterjee, and his close aide Arpita Mukherjee, have been ongoing for months by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate. Gold and large sums of money were found in numerous locations connected to Arpita Mukherjee. Arpita was arrested on July 23 of last year, only hours after Partha Chatterjee was apprehended in connection with the same issue.
ED unearths letter addressed to Mamata Banerjee in connection with West Bengal SSC recruitment scam
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had even discovered a letter sent to Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of the state. The aforementioned letter contained corroborating evidence about 44 applicants who each paid 7 lakhs in exchange for a government position. Manik Bhattacharya, a TMC lawmaker, was arrested in October, last year, for refusing to assist with the probe into the recruitment scam. He was sacked from his position as chief of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education on June 22 following the orders of the Calcutta High Court.
Several former ministers and a dozen employees of the state department of education are currently in jail on charges related to the recruitment scandal, which has shaken West Bengal politics over the past few years. Between 2014 and 2021, it is claimed that leaders of Bengal’s ruling party collected over 100 crores from candidates in order to hire them as teachers and personnel at state-run schools throughout the state.