Kolkata, March 1 – The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday claimed to have got specific clues that former West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chaterjee had signed an undertaking agreeing to take the financial responsibility of a child that his close associate Arpita Mukherjee wished to adopt.
Both Chatterjee and Mukherjee are in currently in judicial custody for their alleged involvement in the multi-crore cash-for-school jobs case in West Bengal.
The ED had recovered huge quantities of cash and gold from the twin residences of Mukherjee in July 2022, which the latter had claimed were kept there by former Education Minister Chatterjee.
Recently, Chaterjee had moved a bail plea in the Calcutta High Court, and during the course of arguments, his counsel had said that the onus of the cash and gold recovered from Mukerhee’s residences cannot be put on his client, adding that the relationship between the two was like that of an ‘uncle and niece’.
However, the ED now claiming that Chatterjee had signed an undertaking to take the financial responsibility of a child that Mukherjee wished to adopt has given a new twist to the case.
The sources also said that the singing of such an undertaking proves how ‘intimate’ the relationship between the two was.
The ED, according to sources, is also surprised that the two parties are now fighting with each other to forego the ownership of cash and gold worth over Rs 50 crore, when the general practice is to fight for establishing the ownership rights.
The ED maintains that since both Chatterjee and Mukherjee were aware of the sources of the seized cash and gold, neither of the two is eligible to get bail.
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