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Kolkata, Dec 20 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has identified a new angle of money laundering in the multi-crore cash-for-school job case in West Bengal where a major part of the proceeds was diverted and shown as donations to certain charitable trusts.

Sources aware of the development said that the ED has mentioned this new style of money laundering in its last and fifth supplementary charge sheet filed at a special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata recently.

One such trust named in the fifth supplementary charge sheet is the Babli Chatterjee Memorial Trust, named after the deceased wife of former West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee, who has been behind bars since his arrest by the ED in the school-job case way back in July 2022.

In the previous charge sheet, Chatterjee’s son-in-law Kalyanmoy Bhattacharya had also been shown as a co-accused of the former Education Minister in this game of fund diversion under the masquerade of donations.

Bhattacharya, who has settled abroad with his wife and Chatterjee’s daughter Sohini Chatterjee Bhattacharya, was also questioned by the ED as well as the officials of the Income Tax department in the matter.

However, his wife had not been shown as an accused in the case though she was the Chairperson of the trust. Besides the trusts, the ED in their subsequent charge sheets had named a number of shell corporate entities linked to Chatterjee and his close associate Arpita Mukherjee.

Chatterjee and Mukherjee were arrested in July 2022, after the ED officials seized huge amounts of cash and gold from her twin residences then. Mukherjee is currently out on bail.

In the last and fifth charge sheet, the ED had also named a corporate entity linked to another prime accused Sujay Krishna Bhadra and claimed that his entity also acted as a major channel of fund diversion.

In the charge sheet, the ED has included 29 new names of individuals and corporate entities

–IANS

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Shimla, Dec 11 (IANS) A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) delegation led by former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Wednesday submitted a memorandum to Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla and exposed the “misdeeds” of the Congress-led state government on completing two years in the state.

“The two-year term of the Congress government will be known as a black chapter in the state’s history as the government is neck deep in corruption, brought the state to the brink of bankruptcy by unethically benefitting its friends, promoting wasteful expenditure and economic mismanagement, besides flouting the law and order,” Leader of Opposition Thakur told the media.

In its two-year stint, the Congress government has proved to be one of scams, he said.

“First, the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) has become a den of corruption. As soon as Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu took over as the Chief Minister, an employee of the CMO wrote an anonymous letter to the Prime Minister’s Office, alleging that an officer working in the CMO was committing corruption in connivance with a senior officer of the state electricity board,” LoP Thakur added.

“Now this allegation seems to be true because the government is providing benefits to the said company through Himachal Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd. (HPPCL) as it has extended its completion timeline for the second time at its board meeting. Instead of imposing a penalty of Rs 162 crore for not completing the project on time, the period was extended by 1,765 days,” he said.

Secondly, the loss-making company has been given a work of Rs 150 crore, which was increased to Rs 288 crore, he added.

“Not only this, the rate of debris removal was also increased from Rs 67 per cubic metre to Rs 88 per cubic metre and the quantity of debris has also increased from 1,74,000 cubic metres to 3,74,000 cubic metres, which is clear evidence of corruption.”

Pointing towards a liquor scam, LoP Thakur said the State Excise and Taxation Department has auctioned liquor contracts for February-March 2024 in which a scam took place.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has taken major action in the state and temporarily seized the immovable property worth Rs 9.31 crore of a liquor company based in Nalagarh.

“The ED has seized property worth Rs 5.31 crore, including an industrial plot with factory, of Kala Amb Distillery and Brewery Private Ltd. Nalagarh… It has taken this action under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in a case of illegal supply of liquor in Bihar. Liquor is also being brought illegally from outside states and sold in Himachal Pradesh, causing a huge loss to the government treasury,” the former Chief Minister said.

The Congress government is also accused of changing the liquor policy, he added.

“Now instead of writing the maximum retail price on the liquor bottle, the minimum sale price is being written. Taking advantage of this, liquor contractors are selling liquor at their desired prices,” he said, adding that due to this favoured contractors are getting benefits but the government treasury is being defrauded.

State BJP President Rajeev Bindal, Himachal BJP co-incharge Sanjay Tandon, Shimla Lok Sabha MP Suresh Kashyap, former Minister Suresh Bhardwaj and other party leaders accompanied Jai Ram Thakur while submitting the memorandum to the Governor.

–IANS

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New Delhi, Dec 15 (IANS) As one nation, one election is once again in the news, BJP leader and former Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on Sunday that simultaneous polls are the need of the hour.

Speaking to IANS, he said, “During the tenure of PM Narendra Modi, many important constitutional reforms have taken place in the last 10 years. And I believe that these reforms were pending for decades. This is the result of strong thinking. And that is why one nation, one election is the need of the hour.”

“…And this reform will strengthen our constitutional values and dignity. On the other hand, it will be very helpful for people to understand the election system in a simple and very smooth manner. Because on and off Assembly elections are being held somewhere, Lok Sabha elections are being held somewhere, Panchayat elections or local body polls are being held somewhere, and the country remains trapped in the elections. That’s why it is important,” the BJP leader added.

Moreover, the ‘One Nation, One Election’ Bill, officially known as the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024, will not be tabled in the Lok Sabha on Monday as the Revised Business List of the Lower House for the day does not mention the Bill.

Naqvi also reacted to Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray’s remarks urging BJP and Congress to stop using historical figures like Veer Savarkar and Jawaharlal Nehru for political gains.

He told IANS, “In fact, he should give this suggestion to his comrades (allies) because both Nehru and Savarkar played important roles in the development of the nation. No one can deny it.”

“…But the Congress party has been speaking ill about Savarkar since the beginning. And we all know that we should show respect to Nehru ji and Savarkar ji,” Naqvi said.

Earlier, Aaditya Thackeray had said, “The Congress and BJP should stop blaming Jawaharlal Nehru or Vinayak Damodar Savarkar for their politics and instead, focus on the future.”

–IANS

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