Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths probing the multi-crore West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment irregularities scam has traced transactions worth Rs 8 crore in eight bank accounts of Arpita Mukherjee that were frozen by the central agency at the beginning of the investigation.
ED sources said that now they are trying to track the two-way money trail in these bank accounts, the first being the source from where such huge amounts were transferred to these accounts and the second being the channels where such funds were transferred in due course.
“In the remaining days of this phase of our custody of Arpita Mukherjee and Partha Chatterjee till August 3, we will grill them thoroughly on this issue. If necessary, forensic audits of these accounts will also be done,” an agency official said.
However, on Sunday afternoon while Chatterjee was taken to the ESI Hospital at Joka in the southern outskirts of Kolkata, the former Minister claimed that he did not have any money.
However, he refused to make any comment when asked who is the actual owner of the huge cash and gold recovered.
On July 23, the ED sleuths recovered Indian currency worth Rs 31.20 crore, foreign currencies worth around Rs 60 lakhs and gold ornaments around worth Rs 90 lakhs from Arpita Mukherjee’s flat at Diamond City housing complex at Tollygunge in South Kolkata.
Again on July 28, ED officials seized Rs 27.90 crore worth Indian currency and a total of 6 kg of gold in bars and ornaments from her another flat at Belgharia.
ED officials have already claimed that whatever has been recovered is just a small portion of the actual financial involvement in the multi-crore scam.
Agency sources said that besides checking the transaction details of these frozen bank accounts, their sleuths are simultaneously the different shale companies that are currently under their companies.
Besides Arpita Mukherjee, Partha Chatterjee’s son-in-law Kalyanmoy Bhattacharya and the latter’s maternal uncle Krishna Chandra Adhikari were found to be directors of some of these companies.