The charge-framing process against Chandranath Sinha, the West Bengal minister accused in a multi-crore cash-for-school job case, faces a delay. The Enforcement Directorate (ED), responsible for initiating the charge framing, has not yet submitted the required documents to the defense counsel. This delay has led to a postponement of the process at the special court of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata.
Sources familiar with the situation revealed that the framing of charges was scheduled to take place on Monday. However, the defense counsel informed the court about the ED’s failure to provide the necessary documents. Consequently, the defense counsel requested a hold on the charge-framing process until the ED submits the required documents for preparation.
Following the defense counsel’s submission, the judge of the special court instructed the ED to furnish the documents by March 13. Only after this submission will the process of framing charges against Chandranath Sinha commence. The delay stems from the ED’s inability to provide the defense counsel with the essential documents, necessitating a pause in the legal proceedings.
The ED’s investigation into the primary teacher recruitment scam implicated Sinha, leading to a search operation at his residence in Bolpur in March 2024. During this operation, the ED seized Rs 41 lakh in cash and subsequently filed a charge sheet against him in connection with the scam. Sinha surrendered before the special ED court on September 6 last year and was subsequently granted bail.
In January this year, the ED disclosed the seizure of assets worth Rs 3.60 crore belonging to Sinha. The agency confiscated a total of 10 properties owned by the minister, his wife, and his son, with a combined market value of around Rs 3.60 crore. The ED’s charge sheet alleged that Sinha recommended 159 ineligible candidates for primary teacher positions, collecting an average of Rs 8,00,000 from each candidate.
West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose had approved the ED’s charge sheet against Sinha in August last year. The ED’s investigation initially linked the minister to the scam through the middleman’s diary, leading to the suspension and subsequent arrest of Trinamool Congress leader Kuntal Ghosh by the central agency officials.
