Bengal school job case: ED tracks private school owned by Manik Bhattacharya

Kolkata, Sep 12 (IANS) Counsel for the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday informed the Calcutta High Court that the central agency has tracked a private school owned by former chairman of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education Manik Bhattacharya, who is currently jailed over his alleged involvement in the state’s multi-crore cash-for-school job case.

Although Bhattacharya’s counsel claimed that the schoo lin reference was a century old, Justice Trithankar Ghosh interrupted him and said that whatever has surfaced in the ED probe will have to be reported.

Bhattacharya is the second accused person tracked by the ED who owns a school.

Earlier, the probe agency tracked the BCM International School to be owned byformer state education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee, who is also in judicial custody over his involvement in the case.

The said school is named after Chatterjee’s late wife, Babli.

Investigation revealed that the school was built up on the land at West Midnapore district taken on lease from the maternal uncle of Chatterjee’s son-in-law Kalyanmoy Bhattacharya.

Meanwhile, the CBI is also supposed to submit an abridged progress report on its investigation in the school job case in the Calcutta High Court’s single judge bench of Justice Abhijt Gangopadhya.

As hinted by the CBI counsel in court on Monday, the probe agency is likely to give some details relating to the involvement of Chatterjee and Bhattacharya in the matter.