Sardha Chit Fund Scam: CBI willing to probe Saradha, Didi says no

Kolkata: While the CBI said that it is willing to take over the investigation into the multi-crore Saradha Group scam, the Mamata Banerjee government on Friday opposed, saying it was “premature” and called the plea in the Calcutta high court “politically motivated”.

“The police have acted promptly, commensurate with the urgency of the situation. There has been no laxity on the part of the state respondents in investigation. The main accused have been arrested. At this stage credibility of the investigation cannot be doubted,” said the state government’s affidavit submitted to the court.

“The state government has so far undertaken no covert or overt action to shield anybody,” it said, denying allegations by the petitioner that efforts are on to shield influential people allegedly involved in the matter. The court asked the government counsel to file a status report in the next hearing.

CBI counsel Himanshu Dutta told the court that the central agency is ready to take over probe if there is a judicial directive.

Sebi also filed an application before the division bench on Friday saying it had passed an order on April 23 to Saradha Realty to wind up all its operations, including those of its group companies, and refund the depositors’ money within three months. Saradha has been barred from mobilizing any fresh deposits or transacting in the securities and share markets.

Meanwhile as the probe progressed, Saradha CMD Sudipta Sen’s most trusted aide, Debjani Mukherjee, has helped police trace several immovable properties of the Group. On Friday, Bidhannagar City police said two more plots of land in Malda and Bankura — owned by either Saradha Group or Sen — have been identified. In the past couple of days, sleuths have seized a huge amount of documents from different Saradha offices.

However, police are yet to trace a huge amount of cash that Saradha had pooled in from depositors. On Friday, sleuths interrogated Sen and Debjani for more than three hours. With the help of corporate affairs experts and chartered accountants, police are now going through Saradha’s account details. But after initial probe, police have reasons to believe that Sen had either destroyed a large part of related documents or never maintained an account.
Courtesy:
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
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