A Kolkata court on Tuesday sent Trinamool Congress MLA Manik Bhattacharya to 14-day custody of the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the alleged teacher recruitment scam, reported ANI.

He is the second Trinamool Congress leader arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in the case. On July 23, the central agency had arrested former West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee for their alleged involvement in irregularities in the recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in government-sponsored and aided schools.

The Enforcement Directorate has claimed that Chatterjee’s WhatsApp chat history showed a conversation about Bhattacharya being involved in collecting bribes, according to NDTV. The legislator was arrested after he was questioned overnight.

An unidentified official from the Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday alleged that Bhattacharya attempted to misdirect investigators, according to PTI. “Bhattacharya has been arrested for his continued non-cooperation with investigators during questioning, which began Monday afternoon,” the official said.

In September, Bhattacharya had moved the Supreme Court after the Calcutta High Court had directed him to appear before the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is also looking into the case, reported the Hindustan Times. On September 30, the Supreme Court had granted Bhattacharya protection from arrest.

An Enforcement Directorate official, however, told the newspaper that that the relief given to the legislator was restricted to the Central Bureau of Investigation case.

Bhattacharya will be produced before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court later on Tuesday.

The case

Chatterjee was the state education minister in 2019 when government jobs were allegedly given to candidates in return for money instead of candidates who had qualified in the recruitment process.

On June 15, the Calcutta High Court had directed the CBI to form a Special Investigation Team to look into the alleged irregularities in the recruitment of Group C and Group D staff, assistant teachers of Class 9 to Class 12, and primary teachers between 2019 and 2020.

The Enforcement Directorate then began a money laundering investigation in the case.

On September 16, the CBI took former president of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education Kalyanmoy Ganguly into its custody. The CBI has arrested a total of five persons in the case so far, including former advisory committee chairperson Santi Prasad Sinha and former secretary Ashok Kumar Saha.

On September 19, the Enforcement Directorate had filed its chargesheet naming Chatterjee, Mukherjee and six companies that were allegedly formed in connection with the alleged scam.