Bengal school recruitment scam: ED files charge sheet against Sujay Bhadra

Kolkata (IANS). The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday filed a charge sheet against prime accused Sujay Krishna Bhadra alias Kalighater Kaku (Kalighat’s uncle) in a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Kolkata in connection with the multi-crore school recruitment scam in West Bengal. .

The central agency officials have detailed in the 7,600-page charge sheet how Bhadra collected illegal proceeds in the case and then diverted the same through various channels. The main charge sheet is of 125 pages.

Sources said the ED has detailed in the charge sheet that over 100 bank accounts were used by Bhadra and his close associates to divert the proceeds through the hawala route.

Sources said that the ED has also identified the corporate entities that were used in this diversion process. Also, the real estates from which the money was diverted have been identified.

The chargesheet details how Bhadra, with the help of a city-based chartered accountant, artificially inflated the share price of a particular company from Rs 10 per share to Rs 440 per share, the source said.

The chargesheet against Bhadra has been filed in less than two months after he was arrested by the ED on May 30 this year.

The ED has claimed that Bhadra acted as the main link between former state education minister and Trinamool Congress general secretary Partha Chatterjee and expelled Youth Trinamool Congress leader Kuntal Ghosh. Both are currently in judicial custody for their alleged involvement in the school job case.

As per the ED’s findings, Bhadra also maintained close contact with Trinamool Congress MLA and former West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBPE) chairman Manik Bhattacharya, who is now in judicial custody in the same case.