Bengal school job scam: Accused Sujay Bhadra approaches Calcutta HC with bail petition

Kolkata, Feb 14 (IANS) Sujay Krishna Bhadra, a prime accused in the multi-crore cash-for-school-job case in West Bengal on Friday filed a bail petition at a division bench of the Calcutta High Court in connection with the case registered by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the matter.

Bhadra has filed the bail petition on health grounds. Although recently granted bail in the case filed by Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the school-job case, Bhadra could not come out of the bars because CBI, which is running a parallel probe in the matter, has shown him as arrested.

The division bench headed by Justice Arijit Banerjee has admitted the petition and asked CBI to submit the medical report of Bhadra by February 18, which will be the next date of hearing in the matter.

On February 11, after three consecutive failures, the CBI had been able to get the voice samples of Bhadra.

On Friday, the CBI also got permission from the special court in Kolkata to collect the voice samples of another accused in the case Kuntal Ghosh, in light fresh evidence secured by the investigating officials in the matter.

Earlier, the ED sleuths too have collected the voice samples of Bhadra. The trial process in the ED-registered case at a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata has already started this month.

Heavyweight individuals named as accused are the former West Bengal education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee, his close aide Arpita Mukherjee, and his son-in-law Kalyanmoy Bhattacharya among others.

Babli Chatterjee Memorial Trust, a trust named after Chatterjee’s deceased wife is also named in the ED chargesheet as an accused entity. It is alleged that the ill-proceeds were shown as donations to this particular trust and thus diverted.

–IANS

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