KOLKATA: West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee was on Saturday sent to two-day custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) by a local court in the teacher recruitment scam that allegedly took place during his previous stint as education minister.
He was arrested earlier in the day after questioning for more than 26 hours.
The agency also arrested his close associate actor Arpita Mukherjee after recovering more than Rs 21 crores in cash during searches at her premises at a posh South Kolkata apartment.
The ED launched the searches at the properties linked to associates of Partha at 14 locations in Kolkata on Friday evening.
The agency had requested the Bankshall court for Partha’s 14 days of custody to “ascertain the money trail”.
It told the court that Partha and Arpita floated “shell companies” and bought properties to launder the proceeds from the scam, adding that the recovered cash was part of the laundered money.