Bengal School Employment Scandal: ED Uncovers Diversion of Funds as Trust Donations

Kolkata, Dec 20 (NationPress) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has revealed a fresh aspect of money laundering in the extensive multi-crore cash-for-school job scandal in West Bengal, where a considerable amount of the proceeds was misdirected and presented as donations to specific charitable trusts.

According to sources familiar with the situation, the ED has highlighted this new method of financial misconduct in its latest and fifth supplementary charge sheet submitted to a special court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata.

One of the trusts mentioned in this supplementary charge sheet is the Babli Chatterjee Memorial Trust, established in memory of the late wife of former West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee, who has been incarcerated since his arrest by the ED in the school job scandal in July 2022.

In earlier charge sheets, Chatterjee's son-in-law Kalyanmoy Bhattacharya was also implicated as a co-defendant alongside the former Education Minister in this scheme of fund misallocation disguised as donations.

Bhattacharya, residing abroad with his wife and Chatterjee's daughter Sohini Chatterjee Bhattacharya, has been interrogated by both the ED and the Income Tax department regarding this matter.

However, his wife, who served as the Chairperson of the trust, has not been named as an accused in the case. In addition to the trusts, the ED has identified several shell companies connected to Chatterjee and his close associate Arpita Mukherjee in their subsequent charge sheets.

Chatterjee and Mukherjee were apprehended in July 2022 after the ED officials uncovered substantial sums of cash and gold at her two residences. Mukherjee has since been released on bail.

In the latest fifth charge sheet, the ED also included a corporate entity associated with another key suspect Sujay Krishna Bhadra, claiming that his company functioned as a significant conduit for fund misallocation.

The charge sheet lists 29 new individuals and corporate entities involved in this scheme.