Kolkata: After over three and a half hours of quizzing, West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee left CBI office at Nizam Palace late evening on Wednesday.
Earlier this day, a single bench of Calcutta High Court had instructed Chatterjee to visit CBI office by 6 pm on Wednesday in connection to the alleged irregularities in the School Service Commission (SSC) and Group D recruitment in the state.
According to CBI sources, the statement of Chatterjee has been recorded and will be matched with the statements of members of the Advisory committee of SSC.
“Necessity of forming the committee, functioning of the committee, meetings and whereabouts of the committee was asked. How recruitment was done in SSC was also asked. The statements are likely to be produced to the High Court,” said the CBI sources.
The CBI sources also said that the former education minister was interrogated at two intervals.
Members of the SSC advisory committee including SP Sinha, PK Banerjee were also interrogated by CBI after the High Court asked them to be present before CBI by 4 pm.
Meanwhile, SSC chairman Siddhartha Majumdar has resigned from his post and Subhro Chakraborty became the new chairman of SSC.
However, Chatterjee refused to talk to anyone before leaving the Nizam Palace.
It can be recalled that a single-judge bench of judge Abhijit Ganguly directed Partha Chatterjee to appear before the CBI on Wednesday, failing which, the agency (if it wishes) could have held a custodial interrogation.
Challenging the verdict of the single-judge bench, Chatterjee moved to the division bench of the Calcutta High Court which refused to grant relief to Chatterjee in connection with the case.
According to the division bench, they did not accept the matter as the applicant did not submit the proper files.
Chatterjee's lawyer through email had also contacted the Chief Justice to ask for stay over Chatterjee’s visit to the CBI office, but at 5:40 pm Chatterjee visited Nizam Palace for quizzing.
