Bengal school jobs case: SC to pronounce judgment tomorrow on Partha Chatterjee’s bail plea

New Delhi, Dec 12 (SocialNews.XYZ) The Supreme Court is scheduled to pronounce on Friday its verdict on a plea filed by former West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee seeking bail in connection with the money laundering case linked to the alleged cash-for-school-job scam matter.

As per the causelist published on the website of the apex court, a bench headed by Justice Surya Kant will deliver its decision on December 13.

Last week, the Bench, also comprising Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, reserved its judgment after hearing the oral arguments of senior advocate Mukul Rohtagi, appearing on Partha Chatterjee's behalf and Additional Solicitor General (ASG) S.V. Raju, representing the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

Rohtagi contended that the former minister had been under custody for over two years and there was no likelihood of early completion of the trial. The senior counsel, assisted by advocate Misha Rohtagi, added that the other co-accused have been granted bail in connection with the money laundering case.

Opposing the bail plea, the ED said that Partha Chatterjee would indulge in influencing witnesses and evidence tampering if released.

In an earlier hearing, the top court had hinted at granting relief to Partha Chatterjee and expressed concern over the delay in the commencement of the trial.

Questioning the ED as to how long can Partha Chatterjee be kept behind bars, the Justice Kant-led Bench asked: "How long can we keep him behind bars? This is a case where more than 2 years have passed. If ultimately he (Chatterjee) is not convicted, what will happen?"

It also flagged the poor conviction rate in the cases lodged by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

In response, the ED had highlighted that there were serious corruption charges against the former West Bengal minister as jobs were offered to undeserving candidates after receiving bribes.

The federal anti-money laundering agency said that Partha Chatterjee was under custody in connection with the corruption case and if released on bail, he will influence the witnesses to retract their statements.

The Supreme Court, on October 1, issued notice to the ED and asked the Central probe agency to file its reply within two weeks.

Earlier, the Calcutta High Court had rejected Chatterjee’s bail plea.

After being denied bail in the lower court multiple times, Chatterjee approached the high court, contending that he had no connection with the huge amount of cash recovered from the residence of his close aide Arpita Mukherjee, and should be granted bail.

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 Chatterjee.

In the course of the investigation, the ED also confiscated some property in the form of land plots or residential houses indirectly or jointly held by the Trinamool Congress leader and his close associates and relatives.

Chatterjee was arrested from his residence by the ED in July 2022. Since then, after the initial days of central agency custody, his address had been a cell at Presidency Central Correctional Home in south Kolkata.

Recently, the Calcutta High Court delivered a split verdict on Chatterjee's bail plea in the corruption case registered against him by the CBI in the same alleged multi-crore cash-for-school-job scam.

While Justice Arijit Bandopadhyay pronounced in favour of bail for Chatterjee and eight others accused in the case, Justice Apurba Sinha Roy rejected the bail for Chatterjee and four others.

However, the bail pleas of four persons were allowed both by Justice Bandopadhyay and Justice Sinha Roy.

The division bench ordered the matter to be placed before Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam.

Thereafter, it was announced that a single-judge Bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty would look into the matter, including the bail plea of Chatterjee.

Source: IANS