The counsel of Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday in a special court of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) argued that the multi-crore school recruitment scam case is equivalent to the German Holocaust where millions of Europeans Jews perished.
ED counsel also opposed the bail plea of former state education minister and the Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee.
“Just as millions of European Jews were killed in the German Holocaust, similarly the entire education system in the state was slaughtered by Partha Chatterjee. He had many associates in this ploy. There are many pockets in the state where there are no private schools and the education system there is standing on the pillar of state- run schools. By appointing ineligible teachers in such schools, he had played with the future of the next generation,” the ED counsel argued.
The central agency counsel substantiated five points while opposing the bail plea of Chatterjee. To establish the influential theory, he cited the event of Chatterjee repeatedly trying to call up the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee after his arrest in July last year by the ED sleuths.
“In the arrest memo he was cited as a relative of the Chief Minister. This could not have been possible unless he was an extremely influential person,” the ED counsel argued.
“After his arrest he was admitted to the state-run SSKM Medical College & Hospital for his treatment. But later he was examined at AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, which declared him as totally fit. He posed to be ill to avoid custody. Had he not been influential, he could not have got admitted at SSKM,” the ED counsel argued further.
He also referred to the event of Chatterjee continuing to sport a ring on his finger while in judicial custody for several days which is totally against the jail manuals.
“Finally, the police arrange for a special vehicle while he was being brought to the court from judicial custody every time, whereas the other inmates are being brought in prison-vans. This proves how influential he is,” the ED counsel argued.