Kolkata, Sep 13: Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee on Wednesday appeared before the Enforcement Directorate for questioning in connection with its probe into the alleged school jobs scam in West Bengal, officials said. Banerjee, the party’s national general secretary, reached the ED office here around 11.30 AM, the officials said. “Banerjee has been called to provide evidence in connection with the school recruitment irregularities. Our officers are also likely to ask him a few questions in connection with the scam,” an ED official told PTI.
The Diamond Harbour MP skipped the coordination committee meeting of the opposition bloc INDIA, scheduled on Wednesday in Delhi. Banerjee had on Tuesday filed a supplementary affidavit before the Calcutta High Court, claiming that a fresh summons issued to him by the ED, when his revisional application challenging earlier summons by the agency is pending, is “bad in law”.Stating that the TMC MP has been summoned on Wednesday “to give evidence”, the affidavit said Banerjee has not only challenged the entire investigation qua him, but also the previous summons issued to him by the agency, in a revisional application filed by him before the high court.Banerjee alleged in the affidavit that the ED has “initiated and embarked upon a fishing and roving inquiry to rope in the petitioner into the domain of the alleged teacher recruitment scam”.
Meanwhile in Kolkata, CPI-M Politburo member and party’s state secretary in West Bengal Mohammed Salim criticised the decision to keep the chair of Trinamool Congress’ national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee vacant at the first meeting of the coordination committee of the opposition INDIA alliance. Drawing a reference to the great Indian epic of Ramayana, Salim said that instead of keeping the chair vacant, Banerjee’s shoes could have been kept there. (Agencies)
