Bengal jobs scam: 'Submitted documents, ready to cooperate in probe,' says Abhishek Banerjee appearing before ED
Kolkata/IBNS: Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee on Thursday "submitted almost 6,000-page documents" to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials appearing before the probe agency in connection with the teachers' recruitment scam case in West Bengal.
Abhishek, the second most important member of TMC, said he was ready to cooperate in the probe, walking out of the ED office at CGO Complex in Salt Lake, Kolkata an hour after he arrived there.
"I could have averted the summons but submitted almost 6,000-page documents within two days. I will cooperate with the probe agency even in future as well," said Abhishek, who once again claimed to be not involved in the case.
Abhishek, the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha member and nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, had skipped the last summons on October 9 in the same case, which is being probed by the federal agency following an order from the Calcutta High Court.
The ED is probing the money trail for the said scam, which provided qualified candidates in government-sponsored schools across the state and provided jobs to the alleged unqualified candidates against cash.
The scam involved appointments as teachers and non-teaching staff in state-run schools through illegal means.
Abhishek got his name cropped up in the job scam case after arrested (now expelled) TMC youth leader Kuntal Ghosh said he was being pressured to take the name of the former.
In 2021, former state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested in the jobs scam after a huge cash of money worth Rs. 50 crore was seized from his aide Arpita Mukherjee's two flats.