HC removes ED officer from investigation of Bengal school job scam cases

Calcutta High Court orders ED to relieve Asst. Dir. Mishra from West Bengal primary school job scam investigation & reassign him to other matters. ED Director directed to assign work to other competent officer & Mishra not to be assigned to any case in West Bengal. Court had raised questions on ED's probe of Leaps & Bounds, a company linked to Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee. ED asked Banerjee to appear before it in Kolkata on Oct. 3.

The Calcutta High Court on Friday directed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to relieve its Assistant Director Mithilesh Kumar Mishra from its investigation of the West Bengal primary school job scam and reassign him to other matters, stipulating that he should not be assigned to an investigation in the State.

Justice Amrita Sinha directed the ED Director to immediately assign the work given to Mr. Mishra to other officers. During an earlier hearing of the matter on Monday, Justice Sinha had expressed his displeasure over the ED report on the jobs scam.

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Observing that during the last hearing, Mr. Mishra had been unable to provide satisfactory answers to the questions posed by the court, Justice Sinha on Friday held that the officer was not competent to handle the case.

“The Court is convinced that the said officer will not be competent enough to handle the present case which is of a huge magnitude. Director, Enforcement Directorate is directed to immediately assign the work entrusted to Shri Mishra to some other competent officer, immediately. Shri Mishra shall be relieved from the investigation of the present case,” the court ordered.

Justice Sinha said that the officer may be engaged in some other case, “but will not be entrusted to investigate any case arising out of West Bengal”.

On Monday, the court had observed that it could “smell something” and that “all is not well” with the ongoing probe of the scam. The judge had raised several questions to Mr. Mishra, who was present in the court on that day, and expressed her displeasure at the way the ED has been investigating the finances of Leaps and Bounds, a company whose CEO was Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee. The court had pointed out that the list of assets provided by Mr. Banerjee appeared to be “grossly incomplete”.