A special court dealing with Enforcement Directorate (ED) cases here on Saturday remanded Trinamool Congress MLA Jiban Krishna Saha in jail custody till September 12.
The MLA from Burwan in Murshidabad had been arrested on Monday for his alleged involvement in irregularities in appointments at state-aided schools.
The ED produced Jiban in the court on Saturday after his six-day police custody ended.
“ED was pending for me. Now this is done,” the 48-year-old legislator said on his way to the court from the CGO Complex in Salt Lake.
The CBI had arrested Jiban in the same case in April 2023, and the Supreme Court granted him bail in May 2024.
Jiban, who won the Burwan seat in 2021, broke down after spotting his son, who turned up at the court with his mother on Saturday. The legislator remained inconsolable for some time.
Post his arrest, the counsel representing ED told the court on Monday that Jiban allegedly tried to scale the boundary wall of his house and threw his two mobile phones into a swamp when the interrogators reached and later refused to cooperate with the officers.
“I did not throw the mobile phones. I tripped and fell, and the phones fell,” Jiban said before entering the court on Saturday afternoon. “I did not buy any property in my
aunt’s name.”
On Thursday, the ED summoned Maya Saha, Jiban’s aunt, for questioning after a team raided her house in Birbhum’s Sainthia on Monday. Maya is a councillor of the Trinamool-run Sainthia municipality.
Arguing before the court, ED counsel sought Jiban’s judicial custody, adding that some progress has been made in the probe over the last few days, and that has been detailed in the documents submitted to the court.
The MLA’s counsel, Zakir Hussain, did not appeal for bail. He said that some of those accused in the case had already secured bail.
“This is a case of an education scam, and my client is a third-line agent. Some of those in the first line have been granted bail,” Hussain said.
The court, after hearing both sides, remanded Jiban in judicial custody.
