Bengal Bengal jobs scam: TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee can be quizzed by probe agencies, rules SC
New Delhi/Kolkata/IBNS: The Supreme Court on Friday ruled the probe agencies, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED), can go on with their quizzing of Trinamool Congress MP and national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee in the West Bengal teacher recruitment scam, media reports said.
However, the top court has stayed the fine of Rs. 25 lakh which was imposed on Banerjee earlier by the Calcutta High Court.
The next hearing on the case will be held on July 10.
Banerjee had moved the top court after he was quizzed by the CBI at its Kolkata office for over nine hours last Saturday.
Banerjee, who is the second most important leader of the ruling party in West Bengal, got his name cropped up in the job scam case after arrested (now expelled) TMC youth leader Kuntal Ghosh said he was being pressured to take the name of the former.
Calcutta High Court on Thursday dismissed Banerjee's plea seeking a recall of a previous order which had said CBI and ED could summon him in the jobs scam.
Curtailing his mass political outreach campaign or 'Trinamoole Nabojowar Yatra', Banerjee appeared before the CBI office on Saturday.
After coming out of the quizzing, Banerjee claimed that most of the agents whose names were shown to him during interrogation in the recruitment corruption case have their homes in East Medinipur and Murshidabad.
"I'm wasting my time too, the time of those who interrogated me is also wasted,'' Banerjee said.
He added, "During the interrogation, the names of the agents who were shown to me and asked whether I know them or not, 90 per cent of their addresses are in East Medinipur and Murshidabad. So who was in charge of these two districts on behalf of the party?"
In 2021, former state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested in the jobs scam after a huge cash of money worth Rs. 50 crore was seized from his aide Arpita Mukherjee's two flats.
Accusing the country's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of political vendetta, Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee said the summons won't be able to stop TMC's campaign adding she would address Abhishek Banerjee's rallies virtually for now.
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