During a hearing at the City Sessions Court in Kolkata on Friday, lawyers representing Partha Chatterjee, who was arrested in connection with an alleged cash-for-jobs scam, appealed for his release, citing his deteriorating health. They informed the court that he has been seriously ill and had required oxygen support since Thursday.
The bail plea pertains to a CBI investigation into the recruitment irregularities within the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBPE). Chatterjee, the former education minister of West Bengal, was arrested on October 1 last year.
His counsels argued that while the federal agency interrogated him later on the 15th of the same month, no further questioning had taken place since then.
The CBI filed a chargesheet against the former TMC leader on December 27 last year, accusing him of accepting bribes from over 1,000 job applicants under the pretence of offering them employment.
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According to reports, the agency also alleged that he personally wrote instructions on a list of tainted candidates, which were later transcribed onto another document by a woman. However, the CBI was unable to present the original handwritten notes but stated that the woman in question had been interrogated.
Chatterjee’s lawyers challenged these claims, asserting that without his original handwritten instructions, the agency’s allegations were baseless. They also argued that the CBI had failed to provide sufficient evidence to support the claim that he had recommended 15 candidates out of a list of 700.
Chatterjee was initially arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in July 2022 as part of a money laundering investigation linked to the alleged West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment scam. The Supreme Court granted him conditional bail in this case in December last year.
Meanwhile, Chatterjee’s son-in-law, Kalyanmay Bhattacharya, who is also an accused in the ED case, has turned an approver. On Tuesday, he recorded his statement as a witness in the ongoing investigation.
