Bengal school case: Kuntal Ghosh’s account credited even after arrest, claims ED

Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), on Wednesday, claimed at the Calcutta High Court that hefty amounts got credited to the accounts of the now-suspended youth leader of Trinamool Congress Kuntal Ghosh even after being arrested.

Ghosh, who had been in judicial custody since then, recently approached the Calcutta High Court with a bail petition. The matter came up for hearing at the single-judge bench of Justice Suvra Ghosh on Wednesday.

During the hearing, the counsel for ED opposed the bail plea claiming that hefty amounts totaling over Rs 1.5 crore had been credited to his bank account a few days after his arrest on January 11, 2023.

In his counter-argument, Kuntal’s counsel said that since his client had already spent almost two years behind, his release on bail does not involve the threat of tampering with the evidence.

Justice Ghosh had kept the judgement in the matter on reserve as of now.

Kuntal, the former youth leader of Trinamool Congress has charges against him, which include collecting hefty amounts to the tune of Rs 19 crore from various ineligible candidates for illegal selection for teaching and non-teaching jobs at different state-run schools in West Bengal.

In September this year, ED officials questioned the West Bengal minister of state in charge of the correctional services department Chandranath Sinha in connection with the school job case.

The ED officials first secured the name of the minister from the diary of Kuntal Ghosh. He had earlier accused ED officials of putting pressure on him to name Trinamool Congress general secretary and party Lok Sabha Abhishek Banerjee as involved in the case.