Bengal school job case: Special court hearing today to monitor progress of framing charges

Kolkata, Dec 26
Despite being a holiday, a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata will conduct a hearing on Thursday to monitor the progress of the formalities for framing charges in the Enforcement Directorate (ED)-registered cash-for-school job case.

The year-end holidays in the courts have started from Wednesday, the occasion of Christmas and they will reopen again on January 2, 2025.

Although the process for charge framing was scheduled for December 23, it could not be completed as yet because of several complications. First, nine out of 53 named in the subsequent charge sheets filed by ED have filed a petition seeking relief from the case.

Secondly, another hurdle in the charges framing process surfaced in the beginning as some of those named in the charge sheets complained to the court that instead of sending hard copies of the case-related documents, the ED forwarded digital copies of the documents to them, which were posing difficulties for them to spot and go through the relevant portions.

Thereafter, the special court directed the central agency to ensure that hard copies of the case-related documents were physically delivered to the doorsteps of all the accused named in the charge sheets.

Sources aware of the development said that the special court hearing on Thursday will be specially conducted to review the progress in the delivery of case-related documents so that the charges framing process can be completed as early as possible following which the trial process in the matter will begin.

In the subsequent charge sheets filed by ED is the matter, a total of 53 have been named as accused out of which 29 are individuals and the remaining are corporate entities and trusts.

Former West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee and his close associate Arpita Mukherjee have been shown as the highest beneficiaries in the total scam amount of Rs 151.26 crore in the cash-for-school job case in the records of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as elaborated in its fifth and last supplementary charge sheet.

As per the supplementary charge sheet filed at a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Kolkata, of the total amount of Rs 151.26 crore confiscated by the ED so far, the combined share of proceeds of Chatterjee and Mukherjee in the entire amount is Rs 103.78 crore. The confiscation is in terms of cash and gold seized and immovable property attached.