Bengal school job case: Court rejects accused’s plea to return to US by Jan 2

Kolkata, Dec 23 (IANS) A special court in Kolkata, on Monday, rejected a plea from an accused in the cash-for-school job case in West Bengal to return to his workplace abroad by January 2, 2025.

On Monday, Kalyanmoy Bhattacharya, the son-in-law of former West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee, after arriving at Kolkata from the US on Monday made two appeals at the special court, the first being of anticipatory bail and the second is the permission to go back to his workplace by January 2.

However, the special court, although granted conditional anticipatory bail in the matter, refused to grant permission to him to go back abroad by January 2.

The judge of the special court observed that since he was not arrested earlier despite being questioned by the central agencies probing the school job case he could be granted anticipatory bail in the matter.

However, the main condition of the anticipatory bail was that he would not be able to leave the country without prior permission of the court. With this condition, Bhattacharya’s plea to go back to his workplace in the US was automatically rejected.

Bhattacharya is among the 54 accused named in the subsequent charge sheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the matter. The process of framing charges in the ED-registered case is scheduled at a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata later in the day.

In fact, Bhattacharya had returned to Kolkata to be physically present at the special PLMA court during the charge framing process on Monday. However, with the special court barring him from leaving India without prior permission from the court, it has now become uncertain when he will be again able to go back.

Earlier he had been questioned several times in the school job case and during that process he reportedly revealed a lot of critical information about his father-in-law.

–IANS

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