Kolkata

An Enforcement Directorate team on Saturday conducted a five-hour raid at former West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee's residence in connection with the school jobs scam, ED officials said.

The agency team searched his home ahead of the assembly elections to be held on April 23 and 29.

ED officials reached Chatterjee’s house in Naktala area around 10.45 am after central forces cordoned off the premises.

The central agency also questioned him, an ED official said.

The team, including a woman official, left the residence at 4:30 pm, but did not talk to the waiting media persons on the nearby road.

The former minister did not come out of his residence to meet the media despite requests.

Chatterjee was released on bail on November 11, 2025, after spending over three years (39 months) in custody following his arrest by the ED on July 23, 2022, in connection with the scam.

He had secured conditional bail from the Supreme Court in the CBI-probed case in August 2025 and subsequently in other related cases before being released from judicial custody. He had undergone treatment at a private hospital in Kolkata before his release.

The raid was necessitated as Chatterjee did not respond to three summons for questioning before the ED, after his release on bail, in connection with the recruitment scam of the West Bengal Central School Service Commission (SSC).

A second team of the agency conducted a simultaneous search at the Rajarhat office of another accused, Prasanna Kumar Roy, whom the ED described as a middleman to the court in the multicrore job scandal.

The investigation began with ED raids on July 22-23, 2022, at his Naktala residence and the premises of his close associate, Arpita Mukherjee.

During these raids, over Rs 50 crore in cash and gold jewellery were seized from Mukherjee's two flats, and both Chatterjee and Mukherjee were arrested.

Chatterjee was accused of being the "mastermind" in the multi-crore scam involving illegal appointments of teachers and non-teaching staff (Group C & D) in government-aided schools while serving as the state's education minister.

His bail conditions included surrendering his passport and not leaving the jurisdiction of the trial court.

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Following the arrest, he was stripped of his cabinet portfolios and suspended from the Trinamool Congress (TMC).

He was not renominated from his Behala Paschim seat for the 2026 Assembly polls by the TMC, from where he was the sitting MLA for four terms since 2006.