Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, July 26: Partha Chatterjee, a minister in Mamata Banerjee’s West Bengal administration, was flown to Bhubaneshwar, the capital of Odisha, for a medical examination last night and was returned to Kolkata this morning for questioning by the Enforcement Directorate.
However, the physicians at AIIMS Bhubaneshwar approved Chatterjee, whose assistant Arpita Mukherjee’s residence was where a room full of cash valued at 20 crore was discovered last week, as having chronic health difficulties without the need for hospitalisation.
Chatterjee visited the state-run SSKM Hospital in Kolkata for a health checkup and other tests after being detained on Saturday of last week. The Bengal minister is accused by the investigators of attempting to use his illness as an excuse to avoid questioning.
Starting today, Chatterjee will be questioned by the Enforcement Directorate at its office in Kolkata. Every 48 hours while the minister and his assistant, Mukherjee, are in detention, the high court has ordered the investigators to assess their health.
The court had ruled that Mukherjee cannot be questioned between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., and that a female officer must always be present while she is being questioned “with strict respect to decency.”
The minister and his aide may remain in the custody of the central investigation agency until August 3. The minister in her cabinet might have received treatment in Kolkata, but instead he was transported to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences in Bhubaneswar, which is why Ms. Banerjee yesterday lambasted the BJP.
