West Bengal commerce minister arrested for school-teacher recruitment scam

Industry and Commerce Minister of India's West Bengal and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee was arrested today.

He was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) after being questioned for around 26 hours in connection with recruitment scam in state-run schools, reports our New Delhi correspondent.

Chatterjee was the state's education minister when the scam took place.

The arrest came following raids at his house that started on Friday.

The ED said in a statement that it recovered about Rs 20 crore from Chatterjee's "close associate" Arpita Mukherjee's residence in south Kolkata on Friday.

"The said amount is suspected to be proceeds of crime of the SSC (School Service Commission) scam. The search team is taking the assistance of bank officials for the counting of cash through cash counting machines. A total of more than 20 mobile phones have also been recovered from the premises of Ms. Arpita Mukherjee," read a statement issued by the ED.

"ED is carrying out search operations at various premises linked to recruitment scam in the West Bengal School Service Commission and West Bengal Primary Education Board," the ED tweeted sharing pictures of cash allegedly recovered from Mukherjee's house.

The other people whose houses were searched included Partha Chatterjee Paresh C Adhikary, West Bengal's minister of state for education; TMC legislator Manik Bhattacharya, former president of West Bengal Board of Primary Education; P K Bandopadhyay, officer on special duty to Chatterjee; Sukanta Acharjee, private secretary to Chatterjee; Handan Mondal alias Ranjan, an alleged agent in the scam; Kalyanmay Bhattacharya, son-in-law of Partha Bhattacharya; Krishna C Adhikary, a relative of Kalyanmay; S P Sinha, advisor to the School Service Commission; and Kalyanmoy Ganguly, former president of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education.