Teacher recruitment scam: Two companies with Arpita Mukherjee as director under ED scanner

In a new revelation during the probe into the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam, it has been found that Arpita Mukherjee along with another person was the director of two companies that could be involved in the transfer of the funds.

The two companies had the same two directors but were registered on separate addresses. The point that connects this multi- \crore scam with these two companies is the common director in both these companies.

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The names of the two companies are Sentry Engineering Private Limited and Echhay Entertainment Private Limited and both companies have only two directors, namely Arpita Mukherjee and Kalyan Dhar.

The sale deeds of the two companies were recovered by the ED sleuths during the raid at the residence of Arpita Mukherjee, allegedly the close confidant and aide of former West Bengal education minister and Trinamool Congress secretary general, Partha Chatterjee in this WBSSC scam.

Both Mukherjee and Chatterjee, currently the West Bengal commerce & industries minister, are currently under ED custody.

ED raided the residence of Arpita Mukherjee at the posh Diamond City complex in south Kolkata and recovered huge treasure in forms of Indian and foreign currencies, gold ornaments, multiple high-end Apple iPhones, sale deeds of multiple flats and documents of multiple high-end vehicles. During that raid, ED recovered the sale deeds of these two companies, namely Sentry Engineering Private Limited and Echhay Entertainment Private Limited.

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ED sources said that of the two companies, Sentry Engineering Private Limited's registered office is Diamond City South, Tower-2, Flat No-1A, 1st Floor, Kolkata- West Bengal 700041, which is the same housing complex which houses Arpita Mukherjee's residence.

On the other hand, the registered office of Echhay Entertainment Private Limited is 95, Rajdanga Main Road, LP-107/439/78, Kolkata- West Bengal 700107.

ED sources claimed that they have doubts about both these companies being bogus and being used to transfer the collections in the WBSSC scam to different avenues. ED is currently looking out for the second director in both these companies, Kalyan Dhar. "Once we get him, Dhar will surely give us some vital clues regarding these two companies and how they were used for routing the illegal money to different avenues," an ED official said.

Meanwhile, Partha Chatterjee was brought back to Kolkata from Bhubaneswar early Tuesday morning by the ED sleuths and was taken to the agency's office at CGO Complex at Salt Lake. Arpita Mukherjee is also there and ED sleuths are planning to interrogate them by putting them face to face in the next few days.

Both Chatterjee and Mukherjee were remanded to ED custody till August 3 by a special court of Public Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata late Monday evening.