Crime

    Bengal school job scam: Fund diversion through company linked to Arpita Mukherjee tracked

    author-img
    The Hawk
    September17/ 2023
    Last Updated:

    Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing the multi-crore cash-for-school job case in West Bengal, has now been able to track some doubtful transactions in the books of accounts of a corporate entity linked to Arpita Mukherjee, a prime accused, that hint towards possible diversion of scam proceeds in real estate business.

    The said company, Ananta Texfab Private Limited, having its registered office at a residential flat, owned by Mukherjee at Belgharia in the northern outskirts of Kolkata, had been under ED scanner since last year when the agency started its probe on the money-trail angle in the school job case.

    In fact this particular residential flat at Belgharia was one of the twin- residences owned by Mukherjee, where from the ED sleuths recovered huge cash -- around Rs 50 crore -- in addition to gold in the form of biscuits and bars in July last year.

    Following the seizure, the ED sleuths arrested Mukherjee and former West Bengal education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee from their respective residences. Both are in judicial custody now.

    ED sources said that after careful examination of the books of accounts as well as the inward and outward remittances of the said corporate entity, their sleuths have identified some transactions that clearly hint towards the inward remittances of the scam proceeds being diverted through investments in the real estate businesses.

    The ED sleuths are now examining the exact pockets of investments in the real estate segment where such crime proceeds were invested and whether there was any return from these investments. The central agency sleuths are also considering issuing summons for interrogation to those individuals spotted for their associations with such doubtful transactions.

    —IANS