The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday submitted a supplementary chargesheet against former West Bengal Primary Education Board president Manik Bhattacharya, also a Trinamul Congress MLA, along with his wife, son, a close associate and two companies in connection with a money laundering case in which Partha Chatterjee and Arpita Mukherjee have already been chargesheeted.
The central agency submitted the 160-page chargesheet before the Special CBI-I court, at the city sessions court and submitted a 6,000- page document to support the charges and allegations in the chargesheet.
Manik, his wife Satarupa, son Souvik, close associate Tapas Mandal and two companies have been charged under Sections 3, 4 and 70 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), said Abhijit Bhadra, lawyer for the ED.
The charges, if proved in court, could lead to a maximum punishment of seven years of imprisonment.
Bhattacharya, who was arrested on charges of alleged irregularities in teacher recruitment in government-aided schools in Bengal and money laundering in October, has been in custody for around 60 days.
The chargesheet says that “Bhattacharya in conspiracy with his henchman Tapas Kumar Mondal and others hatched a conspiracy and pursuance of that conspiracy... has abused his high official position to secure qualification of 325 candidates illegally in TET-2014... in lieu of Rs 3.25 crore”.
The document also mentions that the “investigation conducted under the PMLA, 2002, revealed that an amount of Rs 2,64,53,988 was extorted from 530 self-financed DElEd Colleges...in the bank accounts of M/S Acuere Consultancy Services”, a firm owned by Manik’s son Souvik.
The document adds that the investigation conducted under PMLA had revealed that Satarupa and Manik “induced their other family members and relatives” to be part of a “conspiracy” and “pursuant to that conspiracy opened a number of joint bank accounts with those induced persons without informing them the purpose of opening such joint accounts with them”.
Satarupa allegedly had such joint bank accounts in her control, occupation and operation, the ED has submitted.
“Investigation further revealed that one of the joint bank accounts was opened with Late Mrityunjay Chatterjee who passed away in the year 2016 itself but Satarupa Bhattacharya updated the KYC of the said bank account by showing the said expired person was out of station. Further, she also infused huge sums in that bank account recently after the death of Chatterjee and from there the same was used for making FD jointly in her name and in name of a relative named Pannalal Bhattacharya,” the central agency has said.
Earlier, arrested former minister Partha Chatterjee and his associate Arpita Mukherjee and six companies — Echhay Entertainment Private Limited, Ananta Texfab Private Limited, Symbiosis Merchant Private Limited, Sentry Engineering Private Limited, Viewmore Highrise Private Limited and APA Utility Service — had been chargesheeted in the same case.