Money does not belong to me: Sacked TMC leader Partha Chatterjee on over Rs 50 cr seized from Arpita Mukherjee's flats

Kolkata: Partha Chatterjee, sacked West Bengal minister, again denied his involvement in the school teachers' recruitment scam or Bengal SSC scam and said that the money recovered from his close associate Arpita Mukherjee's flats does not belong to him.

"When the time comes, you will know...the money does not belong to me," Chatterjee told media today when he was brought to the ESI hospital at Joka in West Bengal for medical examination.

Asked further if anybody was conspiring against him, Chatterjee said, "You will get to know when the time comes."

On Friday, the former minister in Mamata Banerjee government asserted that he was a victim of a conspiracy and expressed unhappiness over the Trinamool Congress' decision to suspend him.

"This decision (to suspend me) could influence an impartial probe," he had said.

Talking about the Mamata Banerjee's decision to remove him from the ministry, Chatterjee, who once considered to be a close confidante of the Chief Minister, said, "Her (Banerjee's) decision is right."

Chatterjee, 69-year-old politician, was relieved of his duties as minister-in-charge of various departments and suspended from the TMC on Thursday. He was also removed from all party posts.

Chatterjee and his close associate Arpita Mukherjee were arrested and taken into ED custody on 23 July, a day after ED raided a flat of the model-actor (Arpita Mukherjee) and recovered Rs 21 crore. In the subsequent raid by the probe agency at a different flat of Mukherjee, the officials unearthed another tranche of Rs 29 crore.

From Partha Chatterjee's flat, ED recovered documents, deeds among others.

However, Mukherjee during the investigation told ED that she was not aware of the amount of money and stated that Partha Chatterjee's man used to come and keep money in her flat, but she was not allowed to go inside those rooms.

One of his close aides, Arpita Mukherjee, has also been arrested by the ED after crores of rupees in cash were seized from her residences in parts of Kolkata.

The Trinamool leadership has taken exception to the former minister's comments, contending that Chatterjee was himself responsible for his fate.

"Why was he silent for the last few days after his arrest? He has every right to approach the court and prove his innocence. The party has nothing to do with this scam," Kunal Ghosh, party general secretary, told on Thursday.

The CBI is probing the alleged irregularities in the recruitment of Group-C and -D staff, as well as teachers in government-sponsored and aided schools on the recommendations of the West Bengal School Service Commission. Meanwhile, the ED is looking into the money trail involved in the scam.

With inputs from agencies

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