Enforcement Directorate grills Partha Chatterjee and Arpita Mukherjee together first time

Officers trying to identify moveable and immovable assets where more money may have been left parked 

Arpita Mukherjee and Partha Chatterjee: File picture

KINSUK BASU | TT | 05.08.22 : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing into the cash trail of ₹49.8 crore questioned former education minister Partha Chatterjee and his close aide Arpita Mukherjee face-to-face in custody for the first time on Thursday.

They were trying to identify moveable and immovable assets where more money may have been left parked. Officers said apart from the four companies where Mukherjee’s name features as one of the directors, they have found leads about a few other firms with links to the model-turned-film actor.

Ananta Texfab Private Ltd is one such company. While Mukherjee’s name doesn’t feature in the list of directors, the company shares its registered address with that at one of her flats in Belgharia in Club Town Heights on the northern fringes of the city.

“The exact nature of business of some of these companies is not clear to us,” said an official of the central investigating agency. “So we would like to understand whether these companies were floated to help in parking the proceeds of crime.” 

Investigators from the ED said they have accessed the audited balance sheets of the four companies where Mukherjee was one of the directors.

Officers said documents reveal that a chartered accounting firm in the city, had audited the balance sheets of all four companies and they would question the firm shortly. 

Another team of ED officials has started tracing the source of the funds that were used in buying gold jewellery worth ₹4.31 crore that was seized from Arpita’s Belgharia flat.

“We would like to know the shop from where these pieces of jewellery were made and who funded them,” an official said.