Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: An Enforcement Directorate (ED) team on Saturday conducted a five-hour raid at the residence of former West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee in connection with the school jobs scam, officials said.The team reached his home in the Naktala area around 10.45 am after central forces cordoned off the premises. During the operation, ED officials also questioned Chatterjee. The team left the residence at around 4.30 pm. The raid was carried out after Chatterjee allegedly failed to respond to three summons issued by the ED following his release on bail. Officials said the action also comes ahead of the assembly elections scheduled for April 23 and 29.Chatterjee was released on bail on November 11, 2025, after spending over three years (39 months) in custody following his arrest by the ED on July 23, 2022, in connection with the scam. He had secured conditional bail from the Supreme Court in the CBI-probed case in August 2025 and later obtained relief in other related cases. Before his release, he had undergone treatment at a private hospital in Kolkata.The investigation dates back to ED raids conducted on July 22-23, 2022, at Chatterjee’s residence and premises linked to his associate, Arpita Mukherjee. During those searches, over Rs 50 crore in cash and gold jewellery were seized from two flats linked to Mukherjee, following which both were arrested.Chatterjee has been accused of being the “mastermind” in the alleged multi-crore scam involving illegal recruitment of teachers and non-teaching staff (Group C & D) in government-aided schools during his tenure as the state’s education minister.In a parallel operation on Saturday, another ED team searched the Rajarhat office of Prasanna Kumar Roy, an accused in the case whom the agency has described as a middleman in the scandal.As part of his bail conditions, Chatterjee was required to surrender his passport and was barred from leaving the jurisdiction of the trial court.Following his arrest, he was stripped of his cabinet portfolios and suspended from the Trinamool Congress. He was also not renominated from the Behala Paschim seat for the 2026 Assembly polls, a constituency he had represented as MLA for four consecutive terms since 2006.
