TMC leader Shantanu Banerjee produced before court in Bengal job scam case

Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], March 11 (ANI): Shantanu Banerjee, a Trinamool Congress (TMC) youth wing leader, was produced before the court on Saturday after the Enforcement Directorate arrested him in connection with the bribe-for-job scam in the state school education department.

ED on Friday arrested Shantanu Banerjee after interrogating him for eight hours in Kolkata. The case was registered on the orders of Calcutta High Court against the then Minister-in-charge, Department of School Education, West Bengal, and others on the allegations of illegal appointment of Assistant Teacher for classes of 11th and 12th standard.

It was further alleged that the then Advisor of West Bengal Central School Service Commission was part of the network which was involved in illegally accommodating undeserving candidates for appointment in SSC scam cases.

Former West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee are facing a probe into the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam.

Last year, the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) had filed a prosecution complaint against eight accused including Partha Chatterjee and Arpita Mukherjee in the Teachers Recruitment Scam in West Bengal before the PMLA Special Court, Kolkata.
According to ED officials, six entities were used for money laundering. Partha and Arpita used M/s Echhay Entertainment Pvt Ltd, Ananta Texfab Pvt Ltd, Symbiosis Merchants Pvt Ltd, Sentry Engineering Pvt Ltd, Viewmore Highrise Pvt Ltd, and APA Utility Services to launder the money.

In October 2022, the CBI filed a chargesheet against 12 persons, including the former chairman of the WBCSSC, Subiresh Bhattachary, in connection with the alleged illegal appointment of assistant teachers through the WBSSC.

The CBI also named a former assistant secretary of the WBCSSC, an ex-advisor, two former program officers of the commission, and six others in the chargesheet submitted before an Alipore special judge.

The accused in the chargesheet were identified as Santi Prasad Sinha, Ashok Kr Saha, Kalyanmoy Ganguly, Parna Bose, Samarjit Acharya, Prasanna Kumar Roy, Pradip Singh, Jnui Das, Md Azad Ali Mirza, Imam Momin, and Rohit Kumar Jha.