The Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted raids on Friday morning at the residences of West Bengal minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Sujit Bose, TMC MLA Tapas Roy and former North Dumdum Municipality chairman Subodh Chakraborty.
The raids are part of an ongoing investigation into a municipality jobs scam involving alleged irregularities in recruitment within civic bodies.
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Accompanied by central forces, ED officers raided two residences of Bose in the Lake Town area in North 24 Parganas district early on Friday morning. Similarly, Roy’s BB Ganguly Street residence and Chakraborty’s residence in Birati were raided.
“We are conducting search operations at the residences of three TMC leaders in connection with the recruitments in civic bodies. We are also talking to the leaders,” the officer told PTI.
Meanwhile, heightened security measures have been implemented at the locations where the raids are ongoing.
The alleged irregularities in municipality recruitments gained attention when the ED arrested Kolkata-based builder Ayan Sheel on March 19 last year in connection with a school jobs scam. The ED claimed the discovery of OMR (answer) sheets of candidates for various posts in several municipalities during a search at Ayan’s Salt Lake office.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) summoned West Bengal minister Sujit Bose for questioning in August. The CBI is actively investigating alleged irregularities in municipal appointments from 2014 to 2016.
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Despite the state government’s plea for a stay on the Calcutta High Court order for a CBI investigation into the municipal hiring scam, the court rejected the request.
The investigative agencies (CBI and ED) have informed the Calcutta High Court about the links between the civic body recruitment scam and the bribe-for-job scam in the West Bengal school education department. The latter resulted in the arrest of former education minister Partha Chatterjee.
Sujit Bose, who served as the vice-chairman of South Dum Dum Municipality from 2010 to 2021, during which nearly 250 people were recruited, is the first cabinet minister to be summoned in this case.
(With Agencies Inputs)