Kolkata, Dec 17 (IANS): A new bench of the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday heard the bail plea by former West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee in the multi-crore cash-for-school job case and reserved its judgement.
On November 20, a division bench of Justice Arijit Bandopadhya and Justice Apruba Sinha Roy delivered a split judgement on the bail petition by Chatterjee and eight others accused in the case.
While Justice Bandopadhya pronounced in favour of bail for Chatterjee and eight others accused in the case, Justice Sinha Roy rejected the same for Chatterjee and four others.
Thereafter the Calcutta High Court Chief Justice allotted the bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty to hear the matter, the detailed hearing for which was completed on Tuesday.
The counsel for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), since the beginning, has been opposing the bail plea for Chatterjee and four others on grounds that all these four accused are so influential that there are chances of tampering with the evidence and influencing the witnesses, if released on bail. The counsel also said that the trial process against them could not be conducted because of the lack of necessary approval from the state government which is required for state government employees.
The CBI counsel also opposed the argument of the counsels of the accused that the clients should be granted bail considering their age, arguing that there is no legal logic behind granting bail to anyone because of their age.
Two parallel cases are going on against the former state minister, one registered by the CBI and the other by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Chatterjee was arrested in July 2022 by the ED after huge amounts of cash and gold were recovered from the twin residences of his close aide Arpita Mukherjee. Since then, a solitary cell at Presidency Central Correctional Home became his abode and his bail petitions one after another were rejected at different courts. Mukherjee has been in judicial custody since then.
Soon after his arrest, his Trinamool announced his removal from all administrative and organisational posts. The party even abolished the post of Secretary General, which was specially created to give Chatterjee a party rank somewhat equivalent to a national General Secretary.