Shell companies, common fund diversion platform in school job and ration distribution cases: ED

Kolkata: Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths probing different cases of money laundering in West Bengal, have found a common financial embezzlement pattern in both the cash-for school jobs and ration distribution cases.

The central agency sleuths have noticed that multiple shell companies are being used to divert the ill-gotten proceeds.

In the multi-crore cash-for-school job case, the names of three such companies namely Sentry Engineering Private Limited, Symbiosis Merchants Private Limited and Echhay Entertainment Private Limited surfaced.

Former West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee’s close associate Arpita Mukherjee was one of the two directors of these three companies, while the second director was the latter’s brother-in-law Kalyan Dhar.

At a later stage, another corporate entity linked to another prime accused in the cash-for-school job case Sujay Krishna Bhadra also surfaced in the matter.

In the ration distribution case too, sources said, the ED sleuths have found the involvement of multiple shell companies in diversion of funds, out of which names of four entities have surfaced in the course of submission of the ED counsel at a special court in Kolkata.

The first name to surface on this count was NPG Group of Companies, whose owner-cum- managing director is Bakibur Rahman, a Kolkata- based businessman and the first to be arrested by the ED sleuths in the case.

In due course, the names of three other entities namely Shree Hanuman Realcon Private Limited, Gracious Innovative Private Limited and Gracious Creation Private Limited also surfaced during the course of ED’s submission at the court in Kolkata.

As per the records of the Registrar of Companies (ROC), while the current status of Shree Hanuman Realcon is dissolved, the status of the other two entities is shown as “under liquidation.”

All the three companies, as per records of the ROC, had the same address as 100/75 Bhagawati Colony, Flat No. B, Jessore Road, Dum Dum, Kolkata, West Bengal —700074.

Bakibur Rahman’s close associate Abhishek Biswas, whose office and residence were also raided by ED sleuths in this connection, is the common director in all these three corporate entities.