Another house of sacked Trinamool Congress (TMC) minister Partha Chatterjee's close aide Arpita Mukherjee was searched by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday, a day after the Centre agency recovered a huge sum of Rs 30 crore from her house in its investigation into alleged irregularities in the recruitment drives by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC).
According to reports, Enforcement Directorate officials reach the New Town residence of Arpita Mukherjee.
The development comes hours after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led Bengal government removed Partha Chatterjee as the minister in charge, department of industry, commerce and enterprises, department of information technology and electronics, department of parliamentary affairs and department of public enterprises and industrial reconstruction.
Chatterjee was relieved of his duties as MIC of the aforesaid department with immediate effect and Mamata said that she will look after the portfolios held by Chatterjee for the time being.
Chatterjee was sacked after several Opposition parties, including BJP and CPI(M)'s, slammed TMC for not taking any action against the minister even as huge amounts of cash were recovered from properties linked to him.
Chatterjee, who was also TMC's secretary-general, was arrested by ED on July 23 in connection with the school jobs scam. ED has also arrested Chatterjee's close associate Arpita and seized crores of rupees from her houses in different parts of Kolkata.
As per ED officials, nearly Rs 30 crore in cash and gold believed to be in kilograms have been recovered from apartments linked to Arpita Mukherjee so far, besides documents of properties and foreign exchange.