A judge on Wednesday asked the additional director-general of police (correctional services) to “initiate necessary action” against the superintendent of Presidency Correctional Home for allegedly allowing former minister Partha Chatterjee to wear rings while in jail custody.
Chatterjee is an accused in a case related to alleged irregularities in recruitments for schools.
The judge, of the Special (CBI) Court-I, had last week sought to know from the superintendent, Debasish Chakraborty, whether he was aware of his duties.
A lawyer representing the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had brought to the notice of the judge that Chatterjee was wearing rings on April 19, when the former minister was produced in the court virtually.
ED lawyer Abhijit Bhadra said the jail superintendent has written in his report: “When Partha Chatterjee was received in Presidency Correctional Home on August 5, 2022, he was requested to voluntarily disclose if he has had any valuable articles. He showed his hands and three metallic rings were found on his fingers.... At the time of his admission to Presidency Correctional Home, his fingers were swollen. He himself tried to pull out those but he could not.... We also tried to pull out those rings using soapy water but that did not work. As such no more force was applied in order to avoid any injury on him.”
Chatterjee had said on April 19 that he was never told by anyone to remove his rings. He removed the rings the same day.
The judge said: “It is clear that some extraneous reasons prompted the Superintendent of Presidency Correctional Home to abstain himself from discharging his duty.... I am constrained to observe that the conduct of the Superintendent... is prompted with... ulterior motive....”
Calls from this newspaper to Chakraborty went unanswered.
