A youth Trinamul leader from Hooghly arrested on Friday for his alleged involvement in irregularities in recruitment in government schools created assets disproportionate to his income, the enforcement directorate (ED) told a court on Saturday.
The central agency said that Shantanu Banerjee, a functionary of the Hooghly Zilla Parishad, created assets disproportionate to his income with the money he allegedly received from candidates applying for jobs in state-run schools.
Banerjee owns a restaurant near his house at Balagarh in Hooghly and also a resort and a guest house in Hooghly, senior ED officials said.
Much of these assets were made around the time when there were several irregularities in recruitments in state government schools, they added.
“There are reasons to believe that several assets were purchased in Banerjee’s wife’s name and later transferred to his name. We believe a part of the money collected from candidates was parked in these assets,” a senior ED official said.
ED officials said they came across these findings from his financial statements during a search operation at his Balagarh house on January 20.
The team visiting Banerjee’s house had seized a list of around 300 job aspirants during the search operation.
On the same day, a separate team had carried out a similar operation at the two apartments of Kuntal Ghosh, another arrested Trinamul youth leader from Hooghly, in the same case in New Town.
While ED arrested Ghosh the next day (January 21), Banerjee was rounded up on Friday.
“At least seven among 300 job aspirants, whose list was recovered from Shantanu (Banerjee)’s Balagarh house, had secured jobs in some of the state-run schools,” the official said.
“There has been no satisfactory reason as to why a list of job aspirants will be lying in his house.”
On Saturday, Banerjee was produced at Bankshall court and remanded in ED’s custody till March 13.
On his way to the court, Banerjee said those who have been arrested in this case were conspiring against him and that he did not collect any money.
“Ami kono taka niyi ni (I have not collected any money)”, Banerjee said.
His lawyers argued that ED alleged non-cooperation but Banerjee responded every time he was summoned for interrogation.
Lawyers representing the central investigating agency said that Banerjee used to receive the money that Kuntal Ghosh handed over for ensuring recruitment of candidates who have paid for their job.