Teacher Recruitment Scam: TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee To Skip ED Summons

Senior TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday wrote to Enforcement Directorate, which had summoned him for questioning on its ongoing investigation into a scam involving primary school jobs, expressing his inability to appear before it as he is preoccupied with an ongoing party programme.

Last week, the central agency served a notice to Banerjee, summoning him to appear before its officers on June 13.

Banerjee, considered number two in the party, said in the letter to ED that he is currently travelling as part of the "Trinamool e Nabojowar" (New wave in Trinamool) campaign besides being busy with the July 8 panchayat polls preparations.

He said most of the documents sought by the ED are available with appropriate government authorities. "I am unable to appreciate the scope and purport of the summon under reference in as much as you have sought information/documents which do not have any connection with the public speech delivered by me on March 29," he said in the letter to the ED.

The TMC national general secretary had last week declined to comply with the ED summon citing preoccupation with political programmes. "... the information/documents requisitioned by your office in the summons under reference date to a decade, which are voluminous in nature, and I am in the process of collating such information/documents," he said.

Banerjee, however, sought a clarification from the ED on "the scope and purport of the ensuing investigation following which summons has been issued" to him. "I am ready and willing to extend my cooperation with your ensuing investigation within the permissible limits of the law," he said.

The TMC MP was grilled by CBI officers at their Kolkata office for over nine hours on May 20 in connection with their investigation into the primary school jobs scam.