Kolkata: Former education minister and TMC secretary-general, Partha Chatterjee on Friday received another jolt from Calcutta High Court after the division bench of Justice Subrata Talukdar refused to give him protection in connection to the ongoing probe by the central agency into alleged irregularities in the teacher recruitment scam.
It can be noted that on Thursday Chatterjee had moved to the division bench of High Court challenging the verdict of single-judge bench of Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay that if CBI wants they can take Chatterjee in custody for the probe.
On May 18, the single-judge bench also said that Chatterjee, who is currently the minister of commerce and Industries should step down from his post or else either Governer Jagdeep Dhankhar or Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee can remove him from the post for ensuring free and fair probe.
The division bench also made it clear that Justice Gangoapdhyay’s observation was just a recommendation and not binding on the part of Trinamool Congress government or the CBI.
It can be recalled that on Thursday Chatterjee had also moved the Supreme Court challenging the verdict of the High Court’s single-judge bench.
On May 18, Chatterjee was quizzed by the central agency for more than four hours and was again summoned for the second round of quizzing next week.
Meanwhile, amid chants of ‘Hok Pratibad’ (Let there be protest), TMC workers had taken to the streets in Behala (West), the constituency of Chatterjee to highlight the developmental works done by the Trinamool Congress government for the last 11 years.
Though the TMC secretary-general didn’t participate in the rally, he requested that everyone instead of protest should focus on the ‘developmental’ works done by the TMC government.
However, a TMC cadre claimed that the opposition is ‘spreading canards’ to ‘malign’ Chatterjee and also that Chatterjee always stands by the people and helps them.
