Arpita and Partha Chatterjee were arrested in the case on June 22, 2022, after the Enforcement Directorate claimed recovery of nearly Rs 50 crore in cash, jewellery, and documents of properties from the flats owned by her.
The court granted her bail on a personal bond of Rs 5 lakh.
Since she is not an accused in any other case at present, there is likelihood of her being released from jail, officials said. The school staff recruitment case is also being probed by the CBI.
Mukherjee was directed not to leave the Kolkata Police’s jurisdiction without the court’s permission and will have to appear before the judge on every hearing in the case.
Her lawyer prayed for her bail on the ground that she has been in custody for more than one-third of the maximum period of imprisonment if found guilty in the case she is accused of.
In all the cases related to the alleged corruption in the school staff recruitment, the accused had to approach the Calcutta High Court for bail with Arpita’s being the only exception since she got bail from a lower court.
The High Court recently granted bail to suspended Trinamool Congress (TMC) youth wing leader Kuntal Ghosh in the case. Ghosh, who was arrested by the ED in January 2023 during its investigation into the money trail in the case, will remain in custody in another case being investigated by the CBI.
In September, the High Court had granted bail to TMC leader and former MLA Manik Bhattacharya in the case.
In her submissions in the court, Arpita Mukherjee has repeatedly claimed innocence saying the money did not belong to her.
The ED court’s Monday order read, “The accused Arpita Mukherjee be released on bail on furnishing bond of Rs 5 lakh with adequate sureties… on condition that (a) she shall surrender her passport, if there be any, to the I.O. within next forty eight hours of her release from the correctional home; she shall not leave the territorial jurisdiction of Calcutta Police without the leave of this court after completion of last rites of her deceased mother and shall intimate her address of residence within the jurisdiction of Kolkata Police to the I.O; she shall appear before this Court on every date of hearing; she shall not tamper with evidence or intimidate witnesses in any manner whatsoever; she shall not…communicate with…the witnesses… she shall make herself available to the investigating agency for the purpose of further investigation.”
The judge noted that the Supreme Court has clarified that an accused is entitled to be released on bail if he or she is a first-time offender upon completing one-third of the maximum sentence.
The charges against Mukherjee in the ED case entail a maximum seven years’ sentence.
Meanwhile, Calcutta High Court Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam on Monday referred the matter of Partha Chatterjee’s bail petition to a single bench of Justice Tapobrata Chakraborty after the division bench of Justices Arijit Banerjee and Apoorba Singh Roy recently differed on bail to the former minister.
The case is likely to be heard this week.
— PTI inputs