Kolkata, March 14 A special court in Kolkata has approved the application from Kalyanmoy Bhattacharya, the son-in-law of former West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee, to turn into an “approver” in the multi-crore school job case in West Bengal.
Sources aware of the development said Bhattacharya, who is also named as an accused in subsequent charge sheets filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the school job case, had recently submitted an application at a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata expressing a desire to turn “approver” in the case.
Sources added that the special court approval has finally come and as per the order of the court, a “confidential statement” given by Bhattacharya to a judicial magistrate will be recorded now.
Bhattacharya was a member of a trust, Babli Chatterjee Memorial Trust named after the deceased wife of Partha Chatterjee, which was reportedly used to divert ill-gotten proceeds in the school job case. The trust has been named as an “accused entity” in subsequent charge sheets filed by ED in the matter.
The main charges against the trust are that often proceeds in the crime received from the network of agents in the form of huge cash, were shown as donations given to the trust, and thereafter the same cash was used to purchase different landed property registered in the name of that trust.
The documents and papers in the matter procured by the sleuths of both ED and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is conducting a parallel investigation into the school job case, have already been corroborated by Bhattacharya in course of interrogations by the investigating officials.
Sources added that the “confidential statement” of Bhattacharya to be recorded in front of a judicial magistrate will provide the investigating officials an extra tool to make the case water-tight against Partha Chatterjee.
The ED has named a total of 53 individuals as accused in their subsequent charge sheets in the matter, out of which 29 are individuals and the remaining 24 are corporate entities or trusts.
Besides Partha Chatterjee and Kalyanmoy Bhattacharya, his close aide Arpita Mukherjee is also named as accused in the charge sheets.
Apart from Babli Chatterjee Memorial Trust, some other corporate entities have also been named in the charge sheets. A corporate entity where another prime accused Sujay Krishna Bhadra was the erstwhile chief operating officer (COO) is also named as an accused in the ED charge sheet.
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