KOLKATA: The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday filed its first charge sheet in the alleged public distribution system (PDS) scam in West Bengal, which named forest minister Jyotipriya Mallick and rice mill owner and hotelier Bakibur Rahaman among the accused in its 168-page document at Kolkata’s Bankshall court, officials of the federal agency said.

ED also submitted documents running into more than 3,000 pages along with the charge sheet filed under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The alleged scam, in which subsidized food grains meant for the PDS system were siphoned to the open market for sale, took place when Mallick was the food minister of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government between 2011 – when the party came to power for the first time – and 2021.

Mallick was arrested by ED on October 27 after being grilled for nearly 20 hours.

According to ED, Mallick made his wife, Manidipa, and daughter, Priyadarshini, and some personal staffers directors of three shell companies that were shut down over the last 12 months.

“The agency told the court that food grain worth at least ₹400 crore is suspected to have been sold in the market. ED said all three shell companies run by Mallick and seven more launched by Rahaman were used to launder the sale proceeds,” a lawyer who attended the hearing said on condition of anonymity.

ED also told the court that bank documents indicated ₹36 crore was deposited into bank accounts of Mallick and his family members. Rice mill owner Rahaman, who was arrested on October 14, has been described by ED as a key player in the alleged operation to siphon grain.

ED also told the court that Rahaman gave a ₹9 crore interest-free loan to the minister’s companies in 2016-17 without any collateral and this money was later transferred to the bank accounts of the minister’s wife and daughter.

Mallick and Rahaman are in judicial custody. Mallick’s lawyers have not sought bail for him though he had claimed to be extremely unwell.

The TMC has not taken any action against him, a contrast to the party’s rushed decision to drop then education minister Partha Chatterjee from the state cabinet following his arrest in July 2022 in the school recruitment case. Partha Chatterjee was also suspended from the party and removed from all party posts after photos of a mountain of currency notes recovered from a flat allegedly linked to him emerged.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) targeted TMC saying more ministers and leaders will land behind bars in the coming days.

“Whether it is Anubrata Mondal arrested in the cattle smuggling case or Mallick, it is evident that TMC leaders and ministers made a fortune while common people suffered. More leaders and ministers will be arrested in the coming days,” BJP’s Bengal unit president Sukanta Majumdar said.

TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said: “ED and CBI are carrying forward the political agenda of the BJP. Those who are guilty will always be punished but there is no reason to think that whatever ED says in its chargesheet is gospel truth.”