The Enforcement Directorate on Friday filed a petition in a court citing alleged anomalies in the operation of a joint bank account that the wife of Manik Bhattacharya, a former president of the West Bengal Primary Education Board, had opened with a person who is now dead.
“The joint account was opened by Late Mirtunjay Chatterjee and Satarupa Bhattacharya, who is the wife of Manik Bhattacharya. The investigation has revealed that Manik Bhattacharya acted as introducer for the account. The documents submitted have brought to the fore various inconsistencies, including ones related to the signature of Mirtunjay Chatterjee,” said lawyer Abhijit Bhadra, who is representing ED.
The ED also submitted that “huge” amounts of money had been deposited in bank accounts of Bhattacharya’s relatives, whose source he had allegedly failed to explain. Bhattacharya, a former principal of Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri Law College in south Kolkata, became the president of the state primary education board in 2011, after the Trinamul Congress came to power.
Currently, he is a Trinamul Congress MLA. He was arrested by the ED in connection with alleged irregularities in the recruitment of teachers for government-aided schools.
Bhattacharya’s lawyer pleaded for his client’s bail. He submitted in the court that his client had always cooperated with the agency.
Bhattacharya’s judicial remand was extended till November 10.
