Kolkata, February 17 – The process of formally accusing Chandranath Sinha, the West Bengal minister, of involvement in the multi-crore bribery case involving school jobs in the state, may be delayed indefinitely.
This is because the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which had initiated the formal accusation against West Bengal Minister Chandranath Sinha, who is in charge of the micro, small and medium enterprises and textiles department, has not yet submitted the relevant documents to the defense counsel as requested.
Sources familiar with the development said that the process of formally accusing Chandranath Sinha was scheduled to take place at the special court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata on Monday.
However, the minister's counsel informed the court that the ED had not yet submitted the documents requested by the defense counsel. Based on this, the defense counsel requested that the process of formally accusing Chandranath Sinha be put on hold until the ED submits the relevant documents, so that the defense counsel could prepare for the argument.
Based on the defense counsel's request, the judge of the special court ordered the ED to submit the documents by March 13, after which the process of formally accusing Chandranath Sinha will begin.
Following his involvement in the primary teacher recruitment scam, the ED conducted a search operation at Chandranath's residence in Bolpur in March 2024. The central investigative agency then seized 41 lakh rupees in cash. They also filed a charge sheet against him in the primary teacher recruitment scam case.
In September last year, Sinha surrendered before the special ED court and was granted bail.
Again, in January this year, the ED informed about the seizure of assets worth 3.60 crore rupees owned by Sinha. A total of 10 properties owned by the minister, his wife, and his son were confiscated by the ED, and the total market value of the properties is around 3.60 crore rupees.
In its charge sheet, the ED claimed that the minister recommended a total of 159 ineligible candidates for jobs of primary teachers, and on average, he collected 8,00,000 rupees from each of these candidates.
To recall, West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose had approved the ED’s charge sheet against Sinha in August last year.
The ED officials first secured the name of the Minister from the diary of the middleman and suspended Trinamool Congress leader Kuntal Ghosh, who was later arrested by the central agency officials.