“Confidential statements” of two more individuals in connection with the multi-crore cash-for school-job case in West Bengal might be recorded in front of the judicial magistrates this month.
The tentative dates for the recordings of the “confidential statements” of these two individuals are on March 26 and March 31.
Both these individuals, sources aware of the development said, have expressed their willingness to Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is conducting a parallel probe in the school job case along with Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), for getting their |confidential statements” recorded.
However, for confidentiality sake, the ED officials are maintaining absolute secrecy about the identity of these two individuals. The investigating agencies are also not revealing whether these two individuals have agreed to turn “approvers’ just like Kalyanmoy Bhattacharya, the son-in-law of the former West Bengal education minister and ex-Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee.
It is also not yet clear whether these two individuals have been referred as “accused” or “witnesses” in the subsequent charge sheets filed by ED in the school job case.
Earlier this week, Bhattacharya, who applied for turning into an “approver”, got his “confidential statement: recorded at the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate in Kolkata.
Thereafter, a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in Kolkata (PMLA), approved his plea from being exempted as an accused in the case.
Previously, ED had mentioned Bhattacharya as an accused in their subsequent charge sheets.
Bhattacharya was a member of the trustee board in Babli Chatterjee Memorial Trust, named after the deceased wife of Partha Chatterjee.
The main charge against the trust is that proceeds in the school-job cases received in cash were shown as donations to the trust, and subsequently, the same proceeds were used to purchase property in the name of the trust.
The trial process in the matter at the special court of PMLA in Kolkata has already started. Although Chatterjee has been granted bail in the ED-registered case in the matter, he is still behind the bars because of a parallel case in the matter against him registered by CBI.
