West Bengal: 8 months after arrest, Partha Chatterjee steps down as president of top management institute

Kolkata: Almost eight months after his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with his alleged involvement in the multi-crore teachers' recruitment scam in West Bengal, the former state education minister and ex-Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee has finally resigned from the chair of the president of the board of governors of a prime management institute of Kolkata.

During his tenure as the state education minister from 2014 to 2021, by virtue of his chair, Chatterjee became the president of the board of governors of the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management (IISWBM), a premier autonomous management institute under the academic jurisdiction of the University of Calcutta.

He continued occupying the chair even after he was shifted from the state education department to the state commerce & industries after the 2021 state assembly elections.

Even after his arrest by the ED in July last year in connection with the teachers' recruitment irregularities scam, despite being removed from his ministerial and party portfolios, Chatterjee continued with the chair of IISWBM.

Since his arrest, sources said that there was tremendous internal pressure on the governing body of the institute to replace Chatterjee as the chair of the president of the board of governors. Messages were sent to Chatterjee, who is serving his judicial custody at Presidency Special Correctional Home in south Kolkata, to voluntarily resign from the chair.

Chatterjee finally resigned from that chair this week. His resignation was accepted in a meeting of the current board of governors on Friday.

Chatterjee is an alumnus of this premier management institute. From there, he completed his MBA in human resource management as a specialisation after completing his degree in economics from Asutosh College.