Partha Chatterjee is ‘kingmaker’ in Bengal school job case: CBI

Kolkata, Dec 10 (IANS) The counsel of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), on Tuesday, described former West Bengal education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee as the “kingmaker” in the multi-crore cash-for-school job case.

The CBI counsel made this observation on Tuesday during the hearing on Chatterjee’s bail petition at the new bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty.

Justice Chakraborty’s bench was assigned to hear the matter after a Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Justice Arijit Bandopadhyay and Justice Apurba Sinha Ray delivered a split verdict on Chatterjee’s bail plea, while Bandopadhyay pronounced in favour of bail for Chatterjee and eight others, Justice Sinha Roy rejected the bail for Chatterjee and four others.

On Monday, Chatterjee’s counsel questioned that if the former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal could be granted bail then why not his client?

“Arvind Kejriwal is more influential than my client. He had been granted bail already. My client is not even a member of any party now. So he deserved to be granted bail,” Chatterjee’s counsel argued.

Thereafter in his counterargument, the CBI counsel described Chatterjee as the “kingmaker” in the alleged scam and opposed the bail plea.

The next hearing in the matter at Chakraborty’s bench will be on December 17.

On December 4, the Supreme Court division bench headed by Justice Surya Kant reserved its verdict on the bail plea by Chatterjee.

Chatterjee's counsel Mukul Rohtagi contended that the former state education minister had been under custody for over two years and there was no likelihood of early completion of the trial and added that the other co-accused have been granted bail in connection with the money laundering case.

However, the Justice Kant-led Bench observed that ‘one cannot claim parity here since everybody was not the minister’.

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