CBI has arrested former Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee in the teacher recruitment case

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested former Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee in connection with the teacher recruitment case.

The arrest comes eight months after the probe agency filed supplementary chargesheets in four separate cases related to the bribery-for-jobs scam. Chatterjee was named as one of the prime accused in all four documents.

Chatterjee was arrested hours after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) sought a reply to Chatterjee’s bail plea in the case. According to an ANI report, a Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Suryakant and Ujjal Bhuyan asked the ED to reply to the former minister’s bail plea.

ED arrested Partha Chatterjee in 2022

Chatterjee was arrested by the ED in July 2022 in the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) teacher recruitment scam. In May this year, he was lodged at the Presidency Correctional Home. Earlier, the central agency had found over Rs 21 crore in cash at the house of Chatterjee’s aide Arpita Mukherjee. More than 20 mobile phones were also seized from her house. The ED suspects that the seized cash is proceeds of Crime in the School Service Commission case. The search team took the help of bank officials to account for the seized cash.

TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee announced that Chatterjee is being suspended. He said that corruption will not be tolerated at all. He said that the investigating agency should complete the investigation within the stipulated time.