Arpita Mukherjee built garden on garage that blocks fire shelter at Kolkata high-rise

The south Kolkata apartment from where the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested former Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee’s close aide Arpita Mukherjee on July 23 in the bribe-for-job scam has a garden built on a structure that the state government wanted demolished months ago, HT has found.

Chatterjee was arrested in the early hours of July 23 after the ED seized ₹21.90 crore in Indian currency, jewellery valued at around ₹70 lakh and foreign currency worth around ₹54 lakh from Mukherjee’s apartment on the first floor of one of the towers at Diamond City South, a high-rise residential complex located near Tollygunge in south Kolkata.

The ED raid was conducted at Flat 1-A in Tower 2 where Mukherjee lived. She also owns three more apartments, which comprise a penthouse, in Tower 2, the ED found.

As visuals of the first raid in the case rocked the state, Mukherjee was taken into custody on the evening of July 23. During the operation, ED officials found that apartment No 1-A has an open-air garden attached to it.

HT has accessed the letter that the office of the director general of the West Bengal fire and emergency services department issued to the Diamond City South Residents Association on March 15 this year after an inspection of the fire safety systems at the complex.

The inspection revealed that sheds had been built, blocking the access points to the fire shelters, to park cars.

“The vehicles shed constructed beneath the refuge area shall be dismantled within six months from issuance of this letter,” said the order issued on March 15 by divisional fire officer Saroj Kumar Bag.

The letter made several observations but the most important one was related to the car sheds.

Although the ED has so far raided several properties Mukherjee owns, none are registered in the name of either Mukherjee or Chatterjee.

The apartments at Diamond City South are registered in the names of two companies of which Mukherjee and her brother-in-law, Kalyan Dhar, are recorded as directors.

Of the two companies, Sentry Engineering Private Ltd was registered on January 16, 2001, ten years before the TMC came to power. The other one, Echhay Entertainment Private Ltd, was registered on October 29, 2014, HT found in the records of the registrar of companies.

Claiming to be a poor man who drives cars for a living, Dhar said after the raids he had no idea that these companies existed.

Apart from these, two more companies, of which one is suspected to be linked to real estate business, have also been traced by ED.

Diamond City South residents said the car sheds were set up by the builders, the Diamond Group, and sold to the apartment owners.

“The car sheds were already existing when responsibility for maintenance of the complex was handed over by the Diamond Group to the residents’ association. Now we are in a fix. Also, while the other car sheds in question are temporary structures, Arpita Mukherjee’s garden is built on a permanent load-bearing structure,” a member of the association said on condition of anonymity.

“Mukherjee never used these sheds to park her cars. Her vehicles were kept in the underground garage,” he added.

The builder claimed that no illegal structure was set up during construction of the complex around a decade ago.

“We did not deviate from any sanctioned plan. The responsibility of maintenance was also legally handed over to the residents’ association a few years ago,” Amar Nath Shroff, owner of Diamond Group, told HT.

Fire services minister Sujit Bose said although he had not gone through the order issued by his department the residents can approach the director general of the fire and emergency services.

“I cannot comment off hand on the order since I have not seen it. As far as I know the residents never complained about the fire refuges being blocked. They are free to meet the director general and discuss the issue,” said Bose.

HT also found that common area maintenance and LPG bills, totaling to ₹9,419, had not been paid by Mukherjee for Flat 1-A where the raid was conducted. This apartment is registered as the official address of Sentry Engineering in the records of the registrar of companies.

Members of the residents’ association said a sum of ₹17,442 is pending against unit 18-D, 19-D and 20-D in Tower-2. These are registered in the name of Echhay Entertainment.

One of these three units was used exclusively to keep around a dozen dogs, such as Rottweilers, Golden Retrievers, French Bulldogs, Pugs and Labradors. Chatterjee, the residents said, often came to spend time with Mukherjee and the pets.

A man employed by Mukherjee to take care of the dogs is still doing his duty, the ED recently informed some animal rights groups that expressed concern about the pets after the arrests.