TMC's Santanu Banerjee gets ED custody till March 13 in job scam

Trinamool leader Santanu Banerjee, who was arrested on charges of corruption in recruitment, has been remanded into the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) till March 13. He was produced in court on Saturday and claimed to be innocent before the ED presented multiple pieces of evidence against him.

The agency has alleged that Santanu extorted money from multiple people in his area by exerting influence, having originally worked as a middleman for Manik Bhattacharya and Kuntal Ghosh. Following Santanu's arrest, his assets are being investigated. Several restaurants and plots of land have been discovered in the name of the former SIM seller turned chief executive of the Jilla Parishad.

In May 2022, Calcutta high court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay ordered CBI to probe the appointment of non-teaching staff (Group C and D) and teaching staff by the West Bengal School Service Commission and West Bengal Board of Secondary Education between 2014 and 2021. The appointees allegedly paid bribes in the range of ₹5-15 lakh to get jobs after failing the selection tests.

ED officials said the involvement of TMC leaders surfaced when the agency arrested former education minister Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee on July 23, 2022. In its first charge sheet filed on September 19, ED said it traced cash, jewellery and immovable property worth ₹103.10 crore linked to the two.