Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority to probe Arpita Mukherjee’s ‘Echhay’ records

 Senior officials of KMDA said they were looking for details of the land parcel at 95 Rajdanga Main Road to find out more about its ownership and status

Partha Chatterjee at ESI Hospital, Joka, on Sunday morning. : Picture by Gautam Bose

KINSUK BASU | TT  |  01.08.22 : The state’s urban development department has decided to probe the land records of a four-storey building near Acropolis Mall that houses the office of Echhay Entertainment Private Limited, one of whose directors is Arpita Mukherjee.

Senior officials of the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) said they were looking for details of the land parcel at 95 Rajdanga Main Road to find out more about its ownership and status.

Mukherjee is in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) along with suspended former minister Partha Chatterjee.

The two have been linked to alleged corruption in school recruitments during Chatterjee’s earlier stint as the state’s education minister.

The ED has seized nearly ₹50 crore, jewellery and gold bars from some of Mukherjee’s apartments. Her companies are under the ED’s scanner.

“We will check the land records of this building, including what was the agreement between us and the owner, and whether the entire parcel of land was allotted to one person or more,” said a senior KMDA official.

“These land parcels are a part of the East KolkataTownship Project that the KMDA had started building off EM Bypass since 2006.”

Senior Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) officials said the building that houses one of Mukherjee’s public ventures is spread across three plots of the KMDA land under the urban development department — plots 10, 11 and 12.

ED officers who visited the address as part of their probe into the functioning of Echhay Entertainment Private Limited said the property is spread over all three plots. There are two buildings separated by a common entrance. One of the buildings would be let out for holding marriages and receptions and the other would be rented out to companies looking for space for their shoots.

KMC officials said the civic body received ₹2,356 as annual tax from the property. Since it was registered as a residential property, it didn’t attract higher taxes like other commercial establishments, they said.

“The annual tax of the property would be close to ₹1.75 lakh instead of ₹2,356,” said a senior KMC official.

Echhay Entertainment Private Limited was incorporated in October 2014 with a paid-up capital of ₹1 lakh.

The building was built in 2011. In 2013, Mukherjee set up a production house at the address, an ED officer said.