Former president of the West Bengal Primary Education Board, now Trinamul Congress MLA from Nadia district, Manik Bhattacharya, has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with alleged irregularities in teacher recruitment in government-aided schools in Bengal.
Bhattacharya, former principal of Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri Law College in south Kolkata, became the president of the state primary education board in 2011 after the Mamata Banerjee government came to power.
He was questioned several times by the ED and was summoned to their office on Monday where he was arrested close to midnight after a marathon interrogation, officers of the central agency said.
Allegations of money laundering have been levelled against Bhattacharya. Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of Calcutta High Court had on June 20 directed the state education department to remove him from the post of president of the primary education board and to appoint a new president as early as possible.
The ED on Tuesday made a submission before the special (CBI-I) court saying that while conducting searches at Bhattacharya’s home, the central agency had found a letter that mentioned Rs 7 lakh had been taken from each of 44 candidates in lieu of jobs as teachers.
“When he was asked about these findings, he not only gave contradictory responses but also tried to mislead the investigation by hiding the truth,” an ED officer said outside the court.
The ED also submitted that a firm named M/s Acuere Consultancy Services, which is a proprietorship firm of Bhattacharya’s son Souvik and is involved in management and consultancy services, had allegedly “received a total of Rs 2.64 crore approximately at the rate of Rs 50,000 per institution during the period from October 2018 to April 2019 in the name of services rendered to a total of 530 private institutions offering various courses in Bengal”.
“The investigation, however, revealed that no such services have been provided to these colleges or institutions by M/s Acuere Consultancy Services against the received amount of Rs. 2.64 crore,” said a lawyer of the ED.
“Therefore, it is clear that this amount is nothing but proceeds of crime generated through Bhattacharya’s criminal activities,” he added.
The ED also levelled charges of “non-cooperation” during the recording of his statement and alleged that Bhattacharya had opened multiple bank accounts in the names of his family members and unknown persons to allegedly hide the proceeds of his crime.
Bhattacharya had failed to explain the source of money in these bank accounts, an ED officer said.
Bhattacharya has been charged under sections of the prevention of the money laundering act.
The charges, if proven in court, could lead to a maximum punishment of seven years of imprisonment. Bhattacharya’s lawyer Sanjay Das Gupta refuted charges of “non-cooperation” and said his client had appeared before the agency “more than six times and for several hours” and had submitted all documents that were asked of him.
“Calcutta High Court had instructed the CBI to investigate and not the ED. How did the ED reach the conclusion that the money found in my client’s account is ill-gotten? The CBI has yet to finish their investigation,” Das Gupta said. Bhattacharya’s lawyer also made an appeal before the court to present the CCTV footage of Bhattacharya’s alleged non-cooperation before the ED on Monday before his arrest.
The court, after listening to both sides, sent Bhattacharya to the remand of the central agency for 14 days.
The primary education board had on August 30 asked the district primary school councils for information on appointment letters for the posts of primary teachers from 2011 because “the entire process... is under the investigation of… the enforcement directorate”.
Das Gupta said Bhattacharya’s wife sent an e-mail to the ED at 1pm on Tuesday seeking her husband’s whereabouts as the family was allegedly not informed about the arrest.