Teacher Recruitment Scam: Abhishek Banerjee’s Name Mentioned In ED Chargesheet

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Abhishek Banerjee’s name has been mentioned by Enforcement Directorate (ED) in its chargesheet filed in the ongoing investigation into the teachers’ recruitment scam in West Bengal.

Abhishek, as well as his wife and sister-in-law, have been questioned in the coal scam also. But this is the first time any central agency has mentioned the name of West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s nephew on their chargesheet.

The chargesheet states that Tapas Kumar Mondal, who runs a teacher training centre, had revealed that former TMC youth leader Kuntal Ghosh used to collected money for arranging illegal appointments of candidates as primary teachers and passed it on to Sujay Krishna Bhadra.

ED mentioned that that Bhadra looked after finance-related matters of Abhishek — who was then president of All India Trinamool Youth Congress — and was very close to the latter as well as Kuntal.

The chargesheet also claimed that Bhadra used to visit the office of Manik Bhattacharya, the then president of West Bengal Board of Primary Education and former MLA, to pass on the Abhishek’s message.

ED submitted a 7,000-page supplementary chargesheet against Bhadra before the Special (CBI) Court. Bhadra has been charged under Prevention of Money Laundering Act in connection with irregularities in the recruitment of teachers and staff in government-aided schools in West Bengal.

Bhadra, Bhattacharya and Kuntal, along with former TMC leader and former Industries minister Partha Chatterjee, are all behind bars.

Chatterjee’s close aide Arpita Mukherjee was also arrested after around Rs 50 crore in cash was recovered from her multiple flats.