TMC MLA claims 'I'm home' on CBI's lookout notice

Kolkata, Aug 26: A day after a lookout notice was issued against him by CBI in the SSC scam, TMC MLA Manik Bhattacharya Friday said that he is at his residence in city and is cooperating with the investigating agency.

Bhattacharya, a former chairman of West Bengal Board of Primary Education, said that the lookout notice is an "attempt to malign" him. "I have neither escaped nor have I gone anywhere. I am at my residence in Jadavpur (in the city).

I don't know why a lookout notice was issued against me. I have always cooperated with CBI regarding the probe and will do so in future too," he told a Bengali news channel. "It seems the lookout notice is an attempt to malign me.

I don't know why this confusion is being created," he said. The investigating agency had on Thursday issued a lookout notice for Bhattacharya in connection with its probe into the alleged malpractices in the appointment of primary school teachers after he was not found at his residences in Kolkata and Nadia, an official of the agency had said.

A lookout notice is issued by a law enforcement agency against a person who is wanted in an investigation or is absconding, to prevent the person from leaving the country. Bhattacharya, a lawmaker from Palashipara in Nadia district, had earlier been interrogated by Enforcement Directorate, which is tracking the money trail in the case.

The agency had earlier this month arrested former School Service Commission (SSC) adviser Shanti Prasad Sinha and its ex-secretary Ashok Kumar Saha in connection with the irregularities. In July, the Enforcement Directorate arrested former education minister Partha Chatterjee and his associate Arpita Mukherjee during its probe into the money trail connected with the scam.

The CBI had on Wednesday raided the office of North Bengal University (NBU) Vice-Chancellor Subires Bhattacharyya in Siliguri in connection with its probe into the scam and sealed his apartment in Kolkata.