Bengal school job case: Sujay Bhadra wants presence of lawyers during questioning, ED objects

Kolkata (IANS) | Sujay Krishna Bhadra alias Kalighatar Kaku (Kalighattar’s uncle), arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a multi-crore school recruitment case in West Bengal, sought the special court’s permission for the presence of his lawyer during questioning by officials of the central agency. Is. In the petition filed on Monday, Bhadra’s counsel accused the central agency of pressurizing Bhadra to accept the charges leveled against him.

In this regard, a letter has been submitted in this court on behalf of Bhadra.

However, denying the allegations of undue pressure, the ED’s counsel claimed that the presence of the counsel for the accused is not permitted under the existing legal procedures.

According to ED’s counsel Firoz Edulji, the former state education minister and Trinamool Congress general secretary had also made a similar appeal to the court for the presence of his lawyer during questioning, which was also rejected by the court.

He also pointed out that during the last six days of Bhadra’s ED custody, he was allowed to meet his lawyer twice. He said that even the central agency had allowed his daughter to meet him once during the period of his custody.

Meanwhile, Bhadra’s allegation of undue pressure being applied by the ED to the supervisors to accept the charges leveled against him and similar allegations leveled by another accused in the scam and school recruitment of Trinamool Congress leader Kuntal Ghosh Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee was accused of pressurizing him to give his name in the case.

Bhadra was arrested on May 31 after ED officials questioned him for over 12 hours.

On June 1, a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court in Kolkata sent him to 14-day ED custody. The ED is currently probing around 50 bank accounts, either individually or by companies linked to them, along with transaction details of companies linked to them.

Bhadra’s name came up during his interrogation by Gopal Dalpati, a suspect in the case.

Dalpati had said that Ghosh used to hand over a part of the scam’s earnings to Bhadra, whom the expelled leader fondly refers to as ‘Kalighatar Kaku’.

According to Dalpati, Ghosh claimed that Bhadra was his main link with the top leadership of the state’s ruling party.

–IANS