Bengal school job case: ED submits copy of Abhishek Banerjee's statement to Calcutta HC

Kolkata, Sep 19 (IANS) Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday submitted a copy of the written statement of Trinamool Congress’ national general secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee to the Calcutta High Court’s single-judge bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh.

Banerjee's statement was taken during the course of interrogation by the central agency sleuths on September 13 in connection with the multi-crore cash-for-school job case in West Bengal.

On Tuesday, Banerjee’s counsel was also supposed to submit a copy of the same written statement on their part. However, Banerjee's counsel and senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi sought three more days to submit the same on his part. However, Justice Ghosh rejected the plea for three more days and instead directed Singhvi to submit the same by Wednesday.

The matter will come up for hearing again at 4.30 p.m. on Wednesday.

On September 13, Banerjee was grilled for a marathon nine hours at ED’s central government office (CGO) complex in Salt Lake. After coming out of the ED office, he told the mediapersons that he was selectively chosen for interrogation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to ensure that he couldn't attend the first meeting of the coordination committee of the opposition INDIA bloc on the same day.

He also claimed that ED summoning him on the day of the INDIA bloc meeting shows the importance of Trinamool in the opposition alliance.

He also questioned the credibility of central agencies like the ED and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the grounds of their low conviction rate.

“Such low conviction rate shows that most of the investigations carried out by the central agencies are politically motivated,” he said.

"It is extremely unfortunate that the ED and the CBI are pursuing cases on a pick and choose basis. We are not seeing any such action in the BJP-ruled states. At the same time, any leader from the opposition parties being hounded by central agencies gets a clean chit as soon as they join the BJP,” Banerjee added.