ED files chargesheet against Sujit Bose, son in Rs 250-Crore municipalities job scam

The Enforcement Directorate has filed a chargesheet against former West Bengal Minister Sujit Bose, his son Samudra Bose, IAS officer Jyotishman Chattopadhyay and two firms in the alleged ₹250-crore municipalities recruitment scam, accusing them of money laundering and recruitment irregularities

Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday filed a chargesheet against former West Bengal Minister Sujit Bose and his son Samudra Bose in a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata in connection with the ongoing probe into the multi-crore municipalities job case.

The chargesheet also names Jyotishman Chattopadhyay, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer and two corporate entities linked to the minister and his son.

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During the peak period of the municipalities job case, Chattopadhyay had served in an important position in the West Bengal Directorate of Local Bodies and the state Municipal Affairs and Urban Development Department, with the current Trinamool Congress legislator, Firhad Hakim, as the then minister in charge of the department.

The West Bengal Directorate of Local Bodies is the decision-making and implementing body for recruitment in urban civic bodies, including municipal corporations and municipalities.

Sources aware of the development said that the chargesheet has accused Chattopadhyay of misusing his power and committing irregularities in the municipalities recruitments and personally benefiting from it.

In the chargesheet, sources said the total scam amount in the municipalities recruitment case had been pegged at Rs 250 crore.

Sujit Bose, who was arrested on the night of May 11 by the ED officials after a marathon interrogation in the municipalities’ job case, is currently in judicial custody. Last month, a single-judge vacation bench of the Calcutta High Court rejected the petition from Sujit Bose for scrapping the enforcement case information report (ECIR) filed by the ED against him

As per the chargesheet, Sujit Bose alone recommended the names of 340 job seekers in exchange for money. Of them, 284 individuals received appointment letters. The ED claims that an average of Rs 6,00,000 was taken from each candidate.

The ED officials first got information about the municipalities’ job irregularities while conducting raids and search operations at the residence of Ayan Shil, a middleman involved in both the municipalities job case and the multi-crore cash-for-school job case during the previous Trinamool Congress regime.

Later, CBI began an investigation into the matter following an order from the Calcutta High Court, and arrested Shil. The CBI and ED sleuths, who conducted parallel probes into the municipality and school job cases, traced unauthorised property to the tune of over Rs 100 crore owned by Shil.