Background
In November 2021, Calcutta High Court directed CBI to take charge of the investigation of the scam and find out the people who are accused in the scam. However, at that time, the Government of West Bengal went on to challenge the order before a division bench, which was rejected by the court. [5]
Following the order of the court under the bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, CBI went on to their investigation process starting from 2022, where they raided several places in West Bengal to proceed with the investigation. In May 2022, former TMC MLA and minister in the Mamata Banerjee's cabinet, Upendra Nath Biswas who has previously served as the CBI officer, investigating several scams, revealed about the SSC scam through his Facebook post. [6]
On 23 July 2022, ED arrested TMC leader, who is MLA from Behala Paschim, Partha Chatterjee, who has served as the Minister of Education in Mamata Banerjee cabinet and known as a close aide to her, after multiple interrogations. [7] Following his arrest, the house of his mistress, [8] a small Ollywood actress named Arpita Mukherjee was raided by ED on 23 July 2022, where in her South-West Kolkata apartment, INR 21 crores in cash, along with jewelleries worth INR 50 lakhs and 70 lakhs respectively. She was immediately taken into custody by ED. [9] [10] However, Mukherjee claimed in front of media that Chatterjee was using her house for keeping the money and she doesn't knew about it. [11] Following the next day, ED raided another apartment of Mukherjee, situated in Belghoria, in North Kolkata, where they recovered more 27.90 crore INR in cash, along with 6 kg of gold. [12]
Following the arrest of Chatterjee, he was brought to ESI Hospital, located in Joka in South Kolkata, on the same day, for the medical test. [13] But, he was admitted to SSKM Hospital, in Kolkata, as he was complaining of chest pain. But ED officers requested to the Bankshall Court for allowing to admit Chatterjee in the Command Hospital, instead of in SSKM. [14] A petition also was filed in the court for taking Chatterjee to Bhubaneswar for treatment in AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, which was granted by the court. [15] [16]
On 10 August 2022, CBI arrested Shanti Prasad Sinha, who has been appointed as convenor of special advisory committee formed by Chatterjee for the appointments in SSC, along with Ashok Saha, who was the secretary of West Bengal State School Service Commission, after interrogation, in Kolkata. [17]
On 15 September 2022, CBI arrested Kalyanmoy Gangopadhyay, who was the chairman of the WBBSE, following several interrogations. [18]
On 19 September 2022, CBI arrested Subiresh Bhattacharya, who has also served previously as the West Bengal School Service Commission, and was serving as the Vice-Chancellor of University of North Bengal. He was reported to be not cooperating with the agency in order to proceed with further investigations. [19]
On 11 October 2022, ED arrested another TMC MLA from Palashipara, Manik Bhattacharya, who was the present chairman of West Bengal SSC Committee. [20] [21]
Gradually, two local TMC youth leaders, Kuntal Ghosh and Shantanu Bandyopadhyay were also arrested in the case. [22] [23]
On 17 April 2023, after several interrogations, CBI arrested another TMC legislator Jiban Krishna Saha, who is MLA from Burwan, Murshidabad, who tried to run from his house and thrown his mobile phone in the pond. [24] [25]
On 28 April 2023, the Supreme Court directed to move the case hearings of the scam from the bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay to Justice Amrita Sinha [26] after Justice Gangopadhyay discussed about the case in an interview he gave to the Bengali newschannel ABP Ananda, in which he declared his intention to prosecute Diamond Harbour MP, TMC general secretary & Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee (whose involvement was being alleged by the state BJP unit but no proof in this regard had been made public by investigative agencies till then) in this matter. CJI D. Y. Chandrachud took strong exception of Justice Gangopadhyay's interview and stated that "judges have no business granting interviews to the media on pending matters". [27]
On 20 May 2023, Abhishek Banerjee was interrogated by ED in Kolkata. [28] [29]
On 30 May 2023, Sujay Krishna Bhadra, who is popularly known as 'Kalighater Kaku' was arrested after repeated interrogations done since January 2023. [30]
On 28 June 2023, Bengali actress & president of TMC's student wing Saayoni Ghosh was summoned by ED in connection with the scam. [31] However, she fled from her South Kolkata residence and no one had able to trace her. [32]
On 30 June 2023, Saayoni Ghosh appeared before ED officials in the probe and also said that she will appear again if they want to interrogate again. [33] On 5 July 2023, she was summoned again for interrogation.
