Bengal school job case: HC to pronounce verdict on Partha Chatterjee’s bail plea today

Kolkata, Nov 20 : A division bench of the Calcutta High Court, on Wednesday, will pronounce its verdict on the bail petition of Partha Chatterjee, the former West Bengal Education Minister and ex-Trinamool Congress Secretary General in the cases registered against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the cash-for-school-job matter.

The division bench of Justice Arijit Bandopadhyay and Justice Apurba Sinha Roy will pronounce the judgement in the second half of the day. The same bench will also pronounce verdicts on the bail petitions of eight other persons in the matter at the same time in the afternoon.

However, sources said that even if the division bench of Calcutta High Court grants bail to Chatterjee, there is no chance for him to be freed from behind bars immediately since his separate bail petition against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) case in the same school job case is pending before the Supreme Court.

Partha Chatterjee approached the apex court seeking bail in the case registered by ED after a single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court earlier this year rejected his bail petition in the same case.

Two parallel cases are going on against the former state education minister, one registered by the CBI and the other by the ED. He was arrested in July 2022 by the officials of ED after huge cash and gold were recovered from the twin residences of his close aide Arpita Mukherjee.

Since then a solitary cell at Presidency Central Correctional Home became his abode and his bail petitions one after another were rejected at different courts. Mukherjee has been serving judicial custody since then.

Soon after his arrest, Trinamool Congress announced his removal from all administrative and organisational chairs. Even the party abolished the post of secretary general, which was specially created to give Chatterjee a party rank somewhat equivalent to national general secretary.