शारदा मामले में फिलहाल सीबीआई जांच नहीं: हाई कोर्ट

कोलकाता।। कोलकाता हाई कोर्ट ने पश्चिम बंगाल में हुए चिटफंड घोटाला मामले में फौरी तौर पर सीबीआई जांच का आदेश दिए जाने से बुधवार को इनकार कर दिया।

जांच की मांग वाली याचिका पर सुनवाई के दौरान कोर्ट ने कहा कि फिलहाल इस स्टेज पर जांच के आदेश नहीं दिए जा सकते। हालांकि, बेंच ने मामला अपने पास पेंडिंग रखा है।

कोर्ट की ओर से इस मामले में तैनात अमीकस क्यूरी ने कहा था कि इस स्तर पर सीबीआई जांच की जरूरत नहीं और राज्य की एजेंसी को अपनी जांच जारी रखने रहने दिया जाए। अमीकस क्यूरी के मुताबिक, पिटिशन इसलिए खारिज न की जाए ताकि जांच के किसी भी स्तर पर अगर कोई प्रभावित होता है तो वह कोर्ट की शरण में आ सके।
साभार:
पीटीआई | Jun 19, 2013, 08.31PM IST
http://navbharattimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/20667845.cms

How Sudipta Sen’s plan stumped Sebi

Kolkata: Ponzi mastermind Sudipta Sen can claim a mention in the record books as the fastest fund operator to have parked his ill gotten money in as many as 250 companies within and outside the Saradha Group. Even his cook Hemanta Pradhan was made a director in 96 companies, across all major trades under the sun.

Investigation into the Saradha scam has revealed how Sen went on a takeover spree — picking up major shares in listed companies — to hide his assets from the Sebi scanner.

For instance, Sen and his aide Debjani Mukherjee took over Vibgyor Media for Rs 2 crore and became its directors. Since Vibgyor had 17% stakes in Bio White Gold, the two became shareholders of the listed company. Sen and Debjani sold the shares to Suryamukhi General Finance within a few months, shifting all the money from selling the shares to a secret account, say sources. The operation was planned so meticulously that investigators are going through sleepless nights trying to locate the hidden accounts.

Interestingly, his entry and exit from each company took place within a financial year —usually before the end of the fiscal — so that when companies filed their annual report to the registrar of companies, Sen was out with his crores parked elsewhere. The sole purpose was to avoid financial surveillance.

Why did Sen take this route? 
Documents with TOI reveal that Sebi started following his companies in April 2010. Within nine months, Sen launched his strategy to hoodwink Sebi — he started floating or acquiring companies in a frenzy. In December he owned 25 such companies, and 90 in January 2011. Between January and February 2011, Debjani became director of 40 companies and Sen’s son Subhojit became director of around 30 companies. Sen started entering the equity market through these companies.

Police question TMC MP Kunal Ghosh
Kolkata: Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh was questioned by police for two hours on Monday in the Saradha meltdown probe even as two fresh complaints were lodged by former employees of Channel 10 and Sakalbela. Ghosh was the CEO of the Saradha Group Media. He insisted he was “merely a salaried employee”.
Courtesy:
Rohit Khanna TNN
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIM/2013/04/30&PageLabel=11&EntityId=Ar01103&ViewMode=HTML

Chit fund: Didi blames Centre

Says She Did Not Know What Saradha Was Up To Till 3 Months Ago

Kolkata: When chief minister Mamata Banerjee decided to speak on the Saradha Group bust on Monday, it was a great opportunity to soothe the lakhs of families ruined by the alleged scam. They would have expected words of hope. Or just kind words. But what they saw was a CM on the counter-attack. And what they heard was a strong defence of her partymen, some of whom had links with Saradha, and a strident onslaught on the CPM and the Centre for the mess.

Mamata said her government did not have a clue about the money laundering crisis until a letter from the Sebi, with a CBI report, reached Bidhannagar police after April 15. She blamed the CPM for drafting a weak anti-chit-fund bill and the Centre for not using its powers to stop Saradha from taking money from people.

The CM announced a double-pronged probe — by a special investigation team under the DGP and an inquiry commission under Justice (retd) Shyamal Sen.

Mamata repeatedly claimed that the state government cannot take action on its own because of a “flaw” during the Left regime. “Little can be done unless the Centre sends back the bill that the Left Front government had sent for Presidential consent in 2003,” the CM said.

The CM lost her cool when asked about the role of some Trinamool MPs. “One can’t blame people who worked for the company. The CPM is raising this issue but I have details of how many Page 1 advertisements Ganashakti received from this company. They got the most advertisements,” she said.

She also claimed that she was not aware of what the Saradha Group was up to till about three months ago.

TMC hand-in-glove with group companies: CPM
New Delhi:In search of issues to put the Trinamool government on the mat, the CPM on Monday said the ruling party in West Bengal is hand-in-glove with chit-fund companies that have looted the poor people and caused a huge crisis in the state.

The CPM said it has been warning the Centre for long about the impending crisis. Sitaram Yechury said a delegation of Left MPs had met the PM last December and apprised him of the situation.Basudeb Acharia, CPM leader in the LS, said most of the chit-fund companies have close relations with the TMC. He said that the brand ambassador of the Saradha Group was a Trinamool MP. TNN
Courtesy:
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIM/2013/04/23&PageLabel=16&EntityId=Ar01500&ViewMode=HTML

Sebi contradicts Bengal, says Saradha under lens since 2010

Regulator has banned group CMD from accessing the capital markets till money realised so far is refunded to the investors.

In a startling series of disclosures in the Saradha Realty case, market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has disclosed that the company was under investigation since 2010, contradicting the claim of the state government.

The company was under the investigation of Sebi since April 23, 2010, when the director, Economic Offences Investigation Cell of the Government of West Bengal had sent a formal complaint. Over the weekend, state chief minister Mamata Banerjee had said she was unaware that Saradha was under any investigation.

The letter from the state government office informed Sebi that Saradha Realty India Ltd "is collecting contributions of monies from the public particularly in rural areas of the state of West Bengal". The regulator revealed the details on Tuesday in its order banning Saradha chief Sudipta Sen from accessing the capital markets till the money realised so far is refunded to the investors. In the order issued by Sebi whole-time member Rajiv Agarwal, the regulator has said unless the money is refunded and the details approved by it West Bengal government will be approached to register cases against Saradha Realty India and its directors (which includes Sen) for apparent offences of fraud, cheating, criminal breach of trust and misappropriation of public funds.

Despite Sebi's instructions, Sen has repeatedly sent cartons of papers that the regulator noted was "a strategy to avoid submitting the specific information". In another communication to Sebi, Sen also claimed his company is unable to refund money to investors since its data is stored in servers at Boston, USA, and "is under the control of staff members and brokers".

Sen made the surprising claim earlier this month in a letter denying the accusation that it is running a collective investment scheme without any permission. Instead the company has contended "it is unable to locate the actual investors and identify the money due to the acts of unscrupulous staff members and brokers" who have taken control of the server at Boston.

The company repeatedly denied it ran an investment scheme claiming instead that it was realty firm. Sebi member Agarwal's order shows the company was unable to prove this at all and has passed the order accordingly.

Cracking down
Saradha Realty was under investigation since April 23, 2010, when the director, Economic Offences Investigation Cell of West Bengal had sent a complaint

Recently, state chief minister Mamata Banerjee had said she was unaware that Saradha was under any investigation
Courtesy:
ENS Economic Bureau : New Delhi, Wed Apr 24 2013, 02:15 hrs
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/sebi-contradicts-bengal-says-saradha-under-lens-since-2010/1106862/0

Sardha Scam: Kolkata chit fund scam singes Odisha‏

Bhubaneswar/Kolkata: The virtual collapse of the Kolkata based chit-fund company, Saradha group, which has interests in fields like realty, education and media, among others, have rattled both West Bengal and Balasore district of Odisha in particular, as one of directors of the company was arrested on Saturday.

Citizens took to the streets across West Bengal, agitating against the chit fund institution after they failed to get back their invested money.

Irate mob, comprising investors and agents of the company, ransacked the offices of the Saradha group in several districts across the state. The protests even led to clashes with the police in some areas.

In Durgapur, an agent of Saradha named Yadav Majhi, committed suicide allegedly after he came under depositors’ ire to return their money.

One of the directors of the chit fund company Manoj Kumar Nagel was arrested on Saturday while it’s Chairman and Managing Director Sudipta Sen is still on the run.

The group’s connection with Trinamool Congress became evident after the party’s Rajya Sabha member, Kunal Ghosh, was appointed by Sen as CEO of one if his Group of Companies.

West Bengal government has already ordered Mr Sen’s arrest.

Pressure on its finances recently forced the group to wind up at least 10 media organisations, including newspapers and television channels it had launched or acquired since 2010-11.
Courtesy:
ORB April 21, 2013
http://www.odishareporter.in/top_news/kolkata-based-chit-fund-company-saradha-group-scam-singes-odisha

Saradha Scam: Another Saradha depositor commits suicide

A money collection agent, who had deposited his personal savings of about Rs 4 lakh with the scam-ridden chit fund company Saradha Group, today committed suicide here in Purulia district, police said.

Swapan Kumar Biswas, 36, was found hanging from the ceiling in house at Balrampur, 50 km from Purulia town.

Police said he had deposited Rs 4 lakh from his personal savings in the Saradha group and was under severe distress after the news about the scam spread.
Courtesy:
PTI : Purulia (WB), Sat Apr 27 2013, 18:45 hrs
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/another-saradha-depositor-commits-suicide/1108517/

Centre, Bengal trade charges on reining in Ponzi schemes

No state government has enacted the model rules circulated by the finance ministry to ban chit funds, despite the lapse of six months. The rules are meant to coordinate penal action across India against promoters of Ponzi schemes, but it has not been acted upon. Corporate affairs minister Sachin Pilot told Parliament on Monday that he has sent reminders to the state chief ministers to get going on the subject.

The minister was responding to the allegations made against several primarily West Bengal based money circulation schemes that have collapsed recently. Of these the most prominent one is allegedly Saradha Group. However, state chief minister Mamata Banerjee claimed it is the Centre's responsibility to fix the problem.

The Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act 1978 is a Central act but since the issues fall under the purview of states it is administered by them. She also announced an inquiry and a SIT probe into the collapse of chit fund company.

Banerjee claimed her government has asked the Centre to approve a bill on the subject forwarded by the former Left Front government in the state in 2009. "If it is returned within 24 hours, then our government will immediately promulgate the ordinance to that effect," she said. According to her the bill that the Left Front government had proposed had flaws which allowed the chit fund business to mushroom.

One of the key employees of Saradha Group till last year is now a Rajya Sabha MP from her party, Kunal Ghosh.

In New Delhi, Pilot said the Centre will pitch for heavier surveillance through the RBI along with awareness campaigns for spreading public awareness about such fraudulent entities through bulk SMSes, TV tickers and messages on post office passbooks. A joint campaign with market regulator Sebi is also being explored, he said.

After the case of alleged fraud by Singapore-based SpeakAsia Online, the government started the process of reining in companies which offered impossibly high returns in a short span or offered huge benefits for enrolling more subscribers.

Cheat funds
The ministry of corporate affairs has started programmes to spread awareness on fraudulent entities through SMS, TV and Post Office passbooks

A joint campaign with the Securities and Exchange Board of India is also being explored

A letter has also been written to finance minister P Chidambaram asking for increasing surveillance by the RBI over unauthorised non-banking finance companies
Courtesy:
ENS Economic Bureau : New Delhi, Tue Apr 23 2013, 00:41 hrs
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/centre-bengal-trade-charges-on-reining-in-ponzi-schemes/1106219/0

'निवेशकों को पोंजी स्कीम्स से बचाने में जुटा है सेबी' - सेबी चेयरमैन यूके सिन्हा

नई दिल्ली।। भारतीय प्रतिभूति और विनिमय बोर्ड (सेबी) के अध्यक्ष यूके सिन्हा ने आज कहा कि सेबी यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए कड़ी मेहनत कर रहा है कि छोटे निवेशकों की बचत को कोई जोखिम न हो। यह बात उन्होंने पश्चिम बंगाल में कम समय में ज्यादा प्रॉफिट का लालच देने वाली (पोंजी) योजनाओं में लाखों निवेशकों से कथित ठगी के घटनाक्रम के बीच कही।

उन्होंने कहा, 'अपने क्षेत्राधिकार के दायरे में सेबी यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए बेहद कड़ी मेहनत कर रहा है कि छोटे निवेशकों की बचत को कोई खतरा न हो।' सिन्हा ने हालांकि कहा कि सेबी की कुछ कानूनी सीमाएं हैं और वह खास कंपनियों से संबंधित खास मुद्दों पर टिप्पणी नहीं कर पाएंगे, क्योंकि खास मामलों में कुछ अदालती और अर्ध न्यायिक आदेश रहे हैं।

उन्होंने कहा, 'मैं हालांकि आप सबको आश्वस्त करना चाहूंगा कि हम अपने दायित्व के प्रति सतर्क हैं।'

वह कोलाकाता के शारदा समूह द्वारा निवेश योजनाओं के जरिए कथित धोखाधड़ी किए जाने के बारे में पूछे गए सवालों का जवाब दे रहे थे।

सिन्हा विश्व के प्रतिभूति नियामकों की वैश्विक इकाई आईओएससीओ की एशिया प्रशांत क्षेत्रीय समिति के यहां आयोजित एक सार्वजनिक सेमिनार में बोल रहे थे। उन्होंने कहा कि सरकार सभी तरह की सामूहिक निवेश योजनाओं के नियमन के लिए कानून बनाने पर गंभीरता से विचार कर रही है।

सेबी पहले ही सारदा रीयल्टी इंडिया को इसकी सभी सामूहिक योजनाओं को बंद करने और तीन महीने के भीतर निवेशकों का पैसा वापस करने का आदेश जारी कर चुका है। बाजार नियामक ने शारदा रीयल्टी इंडिया और इसके प्रबंध निदेशक सुदीप्त सेन को इसकी सभी सामूहिक निवेश योजनाओं के बंद होने तथा निवेशकों की पूरी राशि लौटाए जाने तक सभी प्रतिभूति बाजारों से प्रतिबंधित भी कर दिया है।

साभार:

भाषा | May 1, 2013, 03.21PM IST

http://navbharattimes.indiatimes.com/business/business-news/working-hard-to-save-small-investors-from-ponzi-schemes-sebi/businessarticleshow/19816504.cms

Agents bear brunt of Saradha collapse

Depositors of Saradha Group are making off with whatever they can lay their hands on in agents’ homes

Sonarpur, South 24 Parganas (West Bengal): He had spurned the offer of a Rs.50,000-a-month job at the Saradha Group to keep working as one of its agents. Today, after one of eastern India’s biggest deposit-taking companies collapsed, Debasish Banerjee is counting the losses he inflicted on depositors—Rs.60 crore.

Now in his mid-50s, Banerjee was one of the blue-eyed boys of Sudipta Sen, the fugitive chairman and managing director of the Saradha Group, and presided over a chain of 10,000 sub-agents spread over eight districts in West Bengal.

Banerjee cut his teeth in door-to-door deposit collection in the early 1980s as an agent of Peerless General Finance and Investment Co. Ltd—a residuary non-banking company, which pioneered in collecting small savings. Though it didn’t ever default on repayments, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) forced Peerless to stop taking deposits in 2005-2006. This spawned the growth of unregulated deposit-taking companies in West Bengal and other eastern Indian states.

Exploiting the strength of Peerless’s impeccable repayment track record, its redundant field agents helped found new firms that went after people’s savings, mostly in rural areas.

Among those that Banerjee recruited to collect deposits for the Saradha Group was Ayan Naiyya—an unemployed youth of 24. Naiyya says he mobilized Rs.60 lakh from one Nischindapur village in South 24-Parganas district, where he lives.

There are around 5,000 unemployed people in Nischindapur and other adjoining villages. At least 300 of them became agents of the Saradha Group, according to Naiyya, who used to earn around Rs.8,000 a month as commission. At least half of the agents from Nischindapur are now on the run for fear of being lynched.

Not just the unemployed youth, Banerjee managed to rope in a large number of housewives to work for the Saradha Group. One such was Rupa Naskar, who says she has been driven out of her home by her in-laws because she had collected Rs.1.5 lakh from neighbours for the Saradha Group. They vandalized her home on hearing last week that the group had gone bust and there was little hope of recovering their deposits. She sold her jewellery to repay them from her own kitty, but couldn’t.

Naskar says she started working as an agent of the Saradha Group to augment her family income.

Her husband works as a contract labour, and the Rs.3,000-4,000 she earned every month from commissions “meant a lot for us”.

When the going was good, Sraboni Ghosh, a lowly district official in South 24-Parganas district, bought herself a scooter with her monthly commission of Rs. 20,000 from the Saradha Group, but has had to flee her home. The scooter, she says, must have been taken by her depositors.

In South 24-Parganas district, depositors have not only vandalized the Saradha Group’s offices, they are making off with whatever they can lay their hands on in agents’ homes, Banerjee says.

“We have a full-blown law and order situation,” said a key government official being consulted on the crisis. He did not wish to be named.

Returns promised by the Saradha Group and other deposit-taking firms were higher than highstreet banks and the government’s small savings schemes. They used to offer 15-18% annualized returns on short-term deposits, but for the people they targeted, that little bit more made a lot of difference.

After retiring from Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd—a public sector firm—Sankar Das deposited Rs.5 lakh in a monthly income scheme run by the Saradha Group.

He had initially deposited his retirement benefits with a bank and was receiving around Rs.6,000 in interest, he says. The Saradha Group’s scheme promised him Rs.1,500 more per month. He fell for it because he needs to support his son, who, working at a laundry, doesn’t earn enough to support his wife and children.

A large number of agents, too, have lost their own savings.

Munnat Ali Naskar, who raised Rs.28 lakh for the Saradha Group, had deposited his family’s own savings of Rs.4 lakh. His savings gone, he has even been hounded out of his home.

“Poor people will explore all possible ways to increase their income,” says Amiya Bagchi, a former professor and an economist, adding that the poor are “gullible” and easily get carried away by promises of even marginally higher returns.

“As for the women, they are worse off,” Bagchi says. “It is hardly surprising that they look for ways to make the extra buck because they are often abandoned by their husbands and have to fend for themselves.”

Because the Union government stopped paying commission to agents who collected deposits for state-run small savings schemes such as the Public Provident Fund, they turned to private firms, said Asim Dasgupta, West Bengal’s former finance minister and an economist.

Firms such as the Saradha Group paid huge commissions, going up to 30% of deposits collected. This was shared across the chain with the person at the bottom of the layered marketing chain receiving around 10%.

The Saradha Group’s Sen said in a recent undated letter to his so-called marketing members, or people such as Sonarpur’s Banerjee, that his business collapsed because of the unviable commission structure and the unbridled expansion of the sales force.

The group, it appears, collapsed under its own weight, having spread across West Bengal and other neighbouring states at a breakneck speed.

And it started from a district where its penetration was almost unrivalled—South 24 Parganas, says Banerjee. “It all started late last year when cheques bounced and it became increasingly difficult to convince people to give more money,” he recalls.
Courtesy:
Romita Datta Mail Me
First Published: Sun, Apr 21 2013. 11 51 PM IST
Updated: Mon, Apr 22 2013. 04 29 PM IST
First Published: Sun, Apr 21 2013. 11 51 PM IST
http://www.livemint.com/Industry/fsBj2Ukx72pKVJzbm3bMmJ/Agents-bear-brunt-of-Saradha-collapse.html

Promoter at large, no trace of depositors’ money on Saradha books

Group took deposits in cash, firms that issued certificates of deposits don’t acknowledge them as liabilities

Kolkata: Over the past few days, Midland Park in Salt Lake sector V, a six-storey building in the heart of Kolkata’s information technology hub, has been thronged by Saradha Group’s commission agents, depositors and employees.

When they turned up at the group’s corporate office on Thursday, hoping to recover their dues—matured deposits or unpaid salaries—from what used to be one of eastern India’s biggest public deposit-taking companies, they found it vandalized.

The building was ransacked on Wednesday night, according to the policemen now guarding the office. “There’s no one here,” one of them told an elderly lady, who broke down on hearing that the executives hadn’t been seen at Midland Park since the end of last week.

A few hours later, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said at the state secretariat, Writers’ Buildings, that the police were trying to get hold of Sudipta Sen, the group’s 54-year-old chairman and managing director, who, according to the administration, is absconding.
“He is believed to be hiding in the north (of India),” Banerjee said, while leaving the state secretariat.

Mint reported in its Wednesday’s edition that Banerjee had ordered Sen’s arrest.

Very little is known about Sen’s family, education or roots.

Not only a “smooth talker”, Sen, who is also the promoter of the closely held group, was “quite a rabble-rouser”, said a former employee of the group, recalling his January 2011 address to at least 12,000 agents at Kolkata’s Netaji Indoor Stadium.

He otherwise kept a low profile in office, and shared a desk with his executive assistant, this person added, asking not to be named.

Sen spoke Bengali with an Assamese accent, according to most accounts, although he mostly spoke English at work.

None of the directors of the Saradha Group could be contacted for comment.

Kunal Ghosh, a Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member, was the editor and chief execu tive officer (CEO) of the group’s media venture till about a month ago when he quit. He couldn’t be reached for comment.

Though key Trinamool Congress leaders on Wednesday assured the Saradha Group’s agents that the state government will do everything possible to help people realize their dues, it may not be possible to even determine how much money it ever raised from the public.

The reason: deposits were taken in cash, and the companies that issued certificates of deposits do not acknowledge them as liabilities in their books—a departure from the usual practice of treating public deposits as debt.

The only exception was perhaps Saradha Realty India Ltd, which two years ago, admitted in its books to have received public deposits of Rs.156.74 crore, according to the latest available filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).

In line with standard accounting practices, this amount was shown in the firm’s balance sheet for 2010-11 as advances from customers.

The group had at least 100 companies in its fold, show RoC filings. Among those that actively mobilized deposits, according to agents, were Saradha Garden Resort and Hotel Pvt. Ltd, Saradha Construction Co. Pvt. Ltd, Saradha Abasan Pvt. Ltd and Saradha Agro Development Ltd.

Saradha Garden Resort, said a corporate brochure of the group, ran at least three resorts in upper Assam and north Bengal, but its balance sheet for 2011-12 shows the company had no revenue from operations and total liabilities of Rs.8.14 crore, which included long-term loans of Rs.7.4 crore from within the group.

Similarly, Saradha Abasan had no revenue from operations in 2011-12 and current liabilities of Rs.500 on account of unpaid audit fees. This firm, according to the brochure, was developing affordable homes in rural areas in West Bengal and Nagaland.

These two firms had a small paid-up capital of around Rs.1 lakh each and almost no tangible assets.

Only Saradha Agro Development appears to have some operating business—in fiscal 2012, it recorded Rs.8.94 crore in revenue and made a net profit of Rs.17.87 lakh.

This firm, which claims to be selling packaged food products, had bank loans of Rs.11.77 lakh and loans from within the group of Rs.9.82 crore at the end of March 2012. Its total assets were valued at Rs.1.12 crore at cost.

In West Bengal and other north-eastern states, deposit-taking companies typically claim to invest in agriculture, real estate and hotel projects.

As the balance sheets of these companies do not reflect public deposits, it is a “distinct possibility” that the Saradha Group would disown them, calling the receipts issued to depositors as forgeries, according to a leading chartered accountant in Kolkata.

“I am not sure whether he (Sen) can get away with it legally, but clearly it is almost impossible to determine how much he has siphoned off,” he added, asking not to be named.

Several agents confirmed that deposits were only taken in cash.

Meanwhile, Siva Ventures Llc, a Washington-based private equity (PE) investment vehicle of Chennai-based serial investor C. Sivasankaran, is planning to take legal action against the Saradha Group to recover dues of Rs.13-14 crore from its sale of a clutch of television companies two years ago.

In 2010, Sen approached Rathikant Basu, who at that time ran the Tara channels as chairman and CEO of Broadcast Worldwide Ltd, to acquire his and Siva Ventures’ combined 75% stake in the firm.

Though shares were transferred and Sen took over the channels in March 2011, he did not fully pay for them, according to a person familiar with the deal, who did not want to be identified.

Sen defaulted on the staggered payment arrangement that was agreed upon, he said.

A spokesperson for Siva Ventures and Basu refused to comment on the deal.

The Saradha Group had mortgaged a property in West Bengal with Siva Ventures as security, said the person cited above, adding that the US-based PE firm was taking legal steps to liquidate it to recover the dues.
Courtesy:
Manish Basu |  Romita Datta
First Published: Thu, Apr 18 2013. 11 39 PM IST
Updated: Mon, Apr 22 2013. 04 27 PM IST
http://www.livemint.com/Companies/XCytQneVQGArEndRXYAzVN/Promoter-at-large-no-trace-of-depositors-money-on-Saradha.html

Saradha Group crisis reaches CM’s doorstep

Kolkata: The ripples from the crisis stemming from the collapse of the Saradha Group—one of eastern India’s biggest deposit-taking companies—reached the doorstep of chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday as 1,000-odd agents and former employees thronged her Harish Chatterjee Street home seeking help in recovering their dues.

They started turning up from across the state from around 11 in the morning. Within hours, the crowd that swamped the street was too large for the police to immediately disperse using force. Banerjee was not at home at the time.

Appreciating the political sensitivity of the crisis ahead of the forthcoming panchayat, or village council, elections in the state, “the police exercised restraint”, said a government official, asking not to be named.

Though peaceful in their agitation, they effectively laid siege to the chief minister’s home till early evening, demanding an assurance that the state government would take the responsibility of liquidating the Saradha Group’s assets and repay depositors.

“We will be lynched in our homes unless we secure a commitment from Didi,” said an agent, looking distraught, as rain clouds gathered over Kolkata and the administration deployed a large force to make sure the crowd was dispersed. He did not disclose his name.

A former Saradha Group employee from its Uluberia branch, who also joined the protests at Harish Chatterjee Street, said redemption claims had swelled to at least Rs.1,200 crore over the past few months, and the group’s total liability was far in excess of that amount. Mint couldn’t independently verify this claim. This person, too, refused to be identified.

Shortly after 6pm, as the time approached for Banerjee to return home, the police declared the assembly of people unlawful, addressing them through a megaphone, and ordered them to leave. Though the crowd thinned in fear of imminent police action, hundreds stayed put.

Eventually, the police drove them out of Harish Chatterjee Street using minimum force and loaded them into three police vans.

The stakes are high for Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress party, the leaders of which were known to be close to the Saradha Group. A bitter war of words has already started between Sudipta Sen, the fugitive chairman and managing director of the group, and Kunal Ghosh, a Rajya Sabha member of the Trinamool Congress.

Sen, in a recent, undated letter addressed to “marketing members and leaders”—people who collected money for his flagship Saradha Realty India Ltd—said his entry into the media business was his “biggest blunder”, though he had initially thought it would be the “guaranteed protector” of the “marketing members”.

The Saradha Group’s media ventures were until a few weeks ago headed by Ghosh as the editor and chief executive officer. He stepped down soon before they were shut, one by one, over the past few weeks. More than 1,000 journalists and technicians were laid off—many were not paid their salaries for several months.

The irregularities may actually stretch back for as long as one-and-a-half years, with money deducted from salaries for income tax and provident fund not having been paid to the respective authorities, according to a formal police complaint filed on Friday by a large number of those who used to work at the media companies.

Ghosh, who remains incommunicado, issued a statement on Facebook, saying he was never a director in the group and that he had nothing to do with its “finance (and) accounts”.

He said he did not persuade Sen to launch or acquire media companies and that he was roped in only after the Saradha Group got into an alliance with Sangbad Pratidin, a Bengali daily, of which Ghosh was an editor.

This newspaper is owned by another Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member, Srinjoy Bose, and his family. Ghosh quit Sangbad Pratidin earlier this year.

Sen’s three-page letter, the subject line of which is “my last assessment and intimation to you”, shows his business had gone haywire because of huge commissions and unbridled expansion of the team of agents. It said he was more than willing to give up Saradha Realty to his “marketing members” or a court-appointed receiver.

While asking for six months to a year for repayment of matured deposits, he said a software bug had resulted in a large number of fake receipts being issued in the name of Saradha Realty. A chartered accountant Mint interviewed on Thursday had predicted that Sen could disown liabilities by declaring receipts as forgeries because they were not accounted for in the balance sheet.

Sunil Kumar Gupta Roy, an independent chartered accountant, who audited the books of Saradha Realty till fiscal 2010-11, said he did not ever examine them closely. Citing his age, Gupta Roy, 71, said he was only expected to sign the papers as told, and he obliged for a fee of Rs.5 lakh.

“I have only recently come to know that the Saradha Group took public deposits,” said Gupta Roy, who was the auditor for 25 companies run by Sen. “If I knew what the group was up to, I wouldn’t have agreed to be its auditor.”

Gupta Roy said Saradha Realty’s accounts for fiscal 2011-12 had not been finalized and audited. “I was told that the company had received some extension from the Registrar of Companies to file its balance sheet,” he added.

Courtesy:
Romita Datta |  Manish Basu
First Published: Fri, Apr 19 2013. 11 25 PM IST
Updated: Mon, Apr 22 2013. 04 28 PM IST
http://www.livemint.com/Companies/9TRfLolUhZr9T0KWc7NNWP/Saradha-Group-crisis-reaches-CMs-doorstep.html

RBI bans chit funds from taking public deposits

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has banned chit funds from accepting public deposits with immediate effect, the central bank said in a Friday notification.

Any deposits accepted by miscellaneous non-banking companies, “other than from its shareholders as on date shall be repaid on maturity and shall not be eligible for renewal,” RBI said.
Courtesy:
Staff writer
First Published: Fri, Aug 28 2009. 11 40 PM IST
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/Z1r5sMIukF56xMCz6KEBQM/RBI-bans-chit-funds-from-taking-public-deposits.html

Big West Bengal deposit-taking firm defaults on repayments

CMD’s arrest ordered, Saradha Group on verge of collapse; more such firms likely to collapse in same way

Kolkata: The time bomb that has been ticking away in West Bengal may be about to go off.

One of eastern India’s biggest deposit-taking companies—the Saradha Group—is on the verge of collapse. The state administration has ordered the arrest of its chairman and managing director (CMD) Sudipta Sen for defaulting on repayments.

“The honeymoon is over—the chief minister (Mamata Banerjee) wants him arrested,” said a key government official who did not want to be identified. “We are confident that we will be able to nab him in a day or two.”

Sen, who according to the state administration is on the run, could not be contacted for comment.

More are likely to collapse in the same way even before the state promulgates a proposed law to contain the growth of deposit-taking companies, said a finance department official, asking not to be named.

This could happen within days, according to this official.

It isn’t immediately known how much money the Saradha Group owes its depositors. According to some estimates, including those of the state administration, it could run into thousands of crores of rupees.

Pressure on the group’s finances forced it to wind up, over the past few weeks, at least 10 media organizations—newspapers and television channels—that it had launched or acquired since 2010-11.

The closure made at least 1,000 journalists and technicians redundant in Kolkata, making it the biggest layoff in the media industry in eastern India.

Trinamool Congress leaders such as general secretary Mukul Roy and Partha Chatterjee, the state’s minister for commerce and industries, are looking for investors to rescue some of the media organizations that have closed.

The administration swung into action on Wednesday after at least 200 commission agents of the Saradha Group from across the state came en masse to Kolkata to meet Roy.

They asked for the state government’s immediate intervention to recover money from the group, which, according to these agents, started defaulting on repayments last month.

In the event of defaults, agents typically face the ire of depositors because they mobilize money largely on the strength of their own credibility.

The state government assured them that it will take necessary steps to seize all assets of the Saradha Group by the weekend, the agents said after their meeting with Roy. Even so, they fear the state may not be able to recover anything from the 100-odd companies that the group ran.

The group management had already started liquidating assets and there may not be much left on the books of its firms, they said.

Debasish Banerjee, an agent from Sonarpur in Kolkata’s suburbs, said Rs.6 crore was immediately required to repay matured deposits. “Our team leaders are scared of being lynched,” he added.

Another agent, Shaukat Ali from Murshidabad, said agents were initially asked to settle repayment claims on their own from fresh deposits collected by them, “but we soon realized that it was impossible for us to sustain that for a long time”.

Ali, who along with his sub-agents used to collect Rs.60-70 lakh a month until the end of last year, said he and other agents feared they would soon be driven from their homes by the depositors.

“Some agents have already fled their homes,” he said.

Agents from the northern part of West Bengal said the Saradha Group started defaulting on repayments in January. Some cheques bounced because there wasn’t enough money in the group’s bank accounts, they said. These agents refused to be identified.

Some agents managed to get an audience with Sen at his office in Kolkata last week. They were told they would be given power of attorney, or legal authority, to sell land held by the company to repay depositors, said an agent from Dakshin Dinajpur district. He did not want to be identified. It is not known how much land the group owns.

While the agents of the group fear an imminent collapse, this hasn’t stopped several other companies in West Bengal from raising public deposits in the name of fictitious business ventures, selling instruments that are beyond the jurisdiction of India’s securities market and banking regulators.

Most of the older deposit-taking groups were founded in 2007-08, and the instruments they initially sold were mostly of five-year maturity. These deposits are now due for repayment, according to the state finance department official.

Historically, the collapse of a deposit-taking company leaves a trail of ruin and suicide in its wake. The biggest such collapse in West Bengal thus far was that of Sanchayita Investments, a partnership firm that went bust in the early 1980s. A large number of its depositors killed themselves after they failed to recover their savings.
Courtesy:
Romita Datta |  Manish Basu
First Published: Wed, Apr 17 2013. 11 45 PM IST
Updated: Mon, Apr 22 2013. 04 26 PM IST
First Published: Wed, Apr 17 2013. 11 45 PM IST
http://www.livemint.com/Industry/hzEvUwFDZTrboyWUFhPQsM/Big-West-Bengal-deposittaking-firm-default-on-repayments.html

Saradha Group crisis deepens as depositor commits suicide

Offices of the firm mobbed across the state; chairman and managing director Sudipta Sen remained on the run

Kolkata: The crisis that started last week with a West Bengal company defrauding small depositors deepened on Sunday with a woman committing suicide, allegedly over losing her entire savings of Rs.30,000 to the Saradha Group.

Pressure mounted on the state government even as offices of the deposit-taking firm continued to be mobbed across the state, and its chairman and managing director Sudipta Sen remained on the run.

At risk is at least Rs.20,000 crore, mostly in small savings from the poor, who can ill-afford the loss, state officials said.

Their estimate is based on the decline in deposits in state-run small savings schemes in the past five-six years. This amount is thought to have been diverted to private firms such as those of the Saradha Group, which promised higher returns.

“Companies like these have ruined household savings in West Bengal in every decade since the 1980s, but this crisis is completely different because of its magnitude,” a state government official said, requesting anonymity.

West Bengal is planning to introduce a new law to flush out deposit-taking companies, said Mukul Roy, general secretary of the ruling Trinamool Congress party. However, such a law will take at least six months to be implemented because it would need the consent of the Union government, officials said.

The current crisis, from which a “law-and-order situation has already arisen”, is not a rerun of anything experienced by the state administration before, said the official cited earlier,

A contagion is unavoidable, according to government officials consulted over the crisis, and will only extend people’s losses. Other deposit-taking firms that have yet not defaulted on repayment will collapse one by one because fresh collections will dry up, they said. None of the officials wanted to be named.

The image of the Trinamool Congress, led by chief minister Mamata Banerjee, has taken a severe beating on account of the undeniable proximity of some key Trinamool Congress leaders to deposit-taking companies such as the Saradha Group.

Kunal Ghosh, a Rajya Sabha member nominated by the Trinamool Congress, was editor and chief executive of the Saradha Group’s now mothballed media business.

Ghosh, who could not be contacted despite repeated attempts, said in a Facebook post on Friday that he had joined the Saradha Group as an employee after it entered into an alliance with Sangbad Pratidin, a Bengali newspaper that he edited and that was owned by Srinjoy Bose, another Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member.

The crisis couldn’t have happened at a worse time for Trinamool Congress because the state soon goes to panchayat (village council) polls, ahead of the 2014 general election.

Mukul Roy and commerce and industries minister Partha Chatterjee said no one will be spared if found to have helped the Saradha Group to expand its business, but they tried to dissociate their party from the company.

“Those involved will pay the price, but they are individuals, not the party. You could take these as the chief minister’s words, not just mine,” Chatterjee said, indicating that the Trinamool Congress will weed out some of its leaders to protect its image.

Roy alleged that these deposit-taking companies started business in 2008 or thereabouts with the approval of the erstwhile Left Front government.

But former finance minister Asim Dasgupta said the state government under the Left Front’s rule had launched a probe into the affairs of four such firms, including the Saradha Group. “What happened to these investigations?” he asked.

The investigations were dropped after the Trinamool Congress came to power in 2011, a police officer involved in the matter said, requesting anonymity.

While officials racked their brains at Writers’ Buildings, the state secretariat, the human crisis fast escalated.

At least two people have killed themselves over the past three days over the Saradha Group mess. Urmila Pramanik, 50, who had deposited her savings of Rs.30,000 with the Saradha Group, set herself ablaze on Sunday. She succumbed to burn injuries at a Kolkata hospital.

Another Saradha Group agent in Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas district consumed poison on Sunday after he was attacked at his home by depositors. His condition was last reported to be critical.

Offices of the Saradha Group and other deposit-taking companies were vandalized across the state. Roads were blocked in protest, and skirmishes were reported from across the state over the weekend.

Depositors from across the state said they had thought their money to be safe in the hands of the Saradha Group because of its proximity to Trinamool Congress leaders, which they viewed as official endorsement of its diverse businesses. Most of those, though, did not ever exist, show filings with the Registrar of Companies.
Courtesy:
Romita Datta 
First Published: Sun, Apr 21 2013. 11 54 PM IST
Updated: Mon, Apr 22 2013. 04 30 PM IST
First Published: Sun, Apr 21 2013. 11 54 PM IST
http://www.livemint.com/Companies/JFrhz2viiI9Kjv1OdATWzJ/Saradha-Group-crisis-deepens-as-depositor-commits-suicide.html

Agents bear brunt of Saradha collapse

Depositors of Saradha Group are making off with whatever they can lay their hands on in agents’ homesSonarpur, South 24 Parganas (West Bengal): He had spurned the offer of a Rs.50,000-a-month job at the Saradha Group to keep working as one of its agents. Today, after one of eastern India’s biggest deposit-taking companies collapsed, Debasish Banerjee is counting the losses he inflicted on depositors—Rs.60 crore.

Now in his mid-50s, Banerjee was one of the blue-eyed boys of Sudipta Sen, the fugitive chairman and managing director of the Saradha Group, and presided over a chain of 10,000 sub-agents spread over eight districts in West Bengal.

Banerjee cut his teeth in door-to-door deposit collection in the early 1980s as an agent of Peerless General Finance and Investment Co. Ltd—a residuary non-banking company, which pioneered in collecting small savings. Though it didn’t ever default on repayments, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) forced Peerless to stop taking deposits in 2005-2006. This spawned the growth of unregulated deposit-taking companies in West Bengal and other eastern Indian states.
Exploiting the strength of Peerless’s impeccable repayment track record, its redundant field agents helped found new firms that went after people’s savings, mostly in rural areas.

Among those that Banerjee recruited to collect deposits for the Saradha Group was Ayan Naiyya—an unemployed youth of 24. Naiyya says he mobilized Rs.60 lakh from one Nischindapur village in South 24-Parganas district, where he lives.

There are around 5,000 unemployed people in Nischindapur and other adjoining villages. At least 300 of them became agents of the Saradha Group, according to Naiyya, who used to earn around Rs.8,000 a month as commission. At least half of the agents from Nischindapur are now on the run for fear of being lynched.

Not just the unemployed youth, Banerjee managed to rope in a large number of housewives to work for the Saradha Group. One such was Rupa Naskar, who says she has been driven out of her home by her in-laws because she had collected Rs.1.5 lakh from neighbours for the Saradha Group. They vandalized her home on hearing last week that the group had gone bust and there was little hope of recovering their deposits. She sold her jewellery to repay them from her own kitty, but couldn’t.

Naskar says she started working as an agent of the Saradha Group to augment her family income.
Her husband works as a contract labour, and the Rs.3,000-4,000 she earned every month from commissions “meant a lot for us”.

When the going was good, Sraboni Ghosh, a lowly district official in South 24-Parganas district, bought herself a scooter with her monthly commission of Rs. 20,000 from the Saradha Group, but has had to flee her home. The scooter, she says, must have been taken by her depositors.
In South 24-Parganas district, depositors have not only vandalized the Saradha Group’s offices, they are making off with whatever they can lay their hands on in agents’ homes, Banerjee says.
“We have a full-blown law and order situation,” said a key government official being consulted on the crisis. He did not wish to be named.

Returns promised by the Saradha Group and other deposit-taking firms were higher than highstreet banks and the government’s small savings schemes. They used to offer 15-18% annualized returns on short-term deposits, but for the people they targeted, that little bit more made a lot of difference.

After retiring from Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd—a public sector firm—Sankar Das deposited Rs.5 lakh in a monthly income scheme run by the Saradha Group.

He had initially deposited his retirement benefits with a bank and was receiving around Rs.6,000 in interest, he says. The Saradha Group’s scheme promised him Rs.1,500 more per month. He fell for it because he needs to support his son, who, working at a laundry, doesn’t earn enough to support his wife and children.

A large number of agents, too, have lost their own savings.

Munnat Ali Naskar, who raised Rs.28 lakh for the Saradha Group, had deposited his family’s own savings of Rs.4 lakh. His savings gone, he has even been hounded out of his home.
“Poor people will explore all possible ways to increase their income,” says Amiya Bagchi, a former professor and an economist, adding that the poor are “gullible” and easily get carried away by promises of even marginally higher returns.

“As for the women, they are worse off,” Bagchi says. “It is hardly surprising that they look for ways to make the extra buck because they are often abandoned by their husbands and have to fend for themselves.”

Because the Union government stopped paying commission to agents who collected deposits for state-run small savings schemes such as the Public Provident Fund, they turned to private firms, said Asim Dasgupta, West Bengal’s former finance minister and an economist.

Firms such as the Saradha Group paid huge commissions, going up to 30% of deposits collected. This was shared across the chain with the person at the bottom of the layered marketing chain receiving around 10%.

The Saradha Group’s Sen said in a recent undated letter to his so-called marketing members, or people such as Sonarpur’s Banerjee, that his business collapsed because of the unviable commission structure and the unbridled expansion of the sales force.

The group, it appears, collapsed under its own weight, having spread across West Bengal and other neighbouring states at a breakneck speed.

And it started from a district where its penetration was almost unrivalled—South 24 Parganas, says Banerjee. “It all started late last year when cheques bounced and it became increasingly difficult to convince people to give more money,” he recalls.
Courtesy:
Romita Datta Mail Me
First Published: Sun, Apr 21 2013. 11 51 PM IST
Updated: Mon, Apr 22 2013. 04 29 PM IST
First Published: Sun, Apr 21 2013. 11 51 PM IST
http://www.livemint.com/Industry/fsBj2Ukx72pKVJzbm3bMmJ/Agents-bear-brunt-of-Saradha-collapse.html

Saradha Group crisis deepens as depositor commits suicide

Offices of the firm mobbed across the state; chairman and managing director Sudipta Sen remained on the run
Kolkata: The crisis that started last week with a West Bengal company defrauding small depositors deepened on Sunday with a woman committing suicide, allegedly over losing her entire savings of Rs.30,000 to the Saradha Group.

Pressure mounted on the state government even as offices of the deposit-taking firm continued to be mobbed across the state, and its chairman and managing director Sudipta Sen remained on the run.

At risk is at least Rs.20,000 crore, mostly in small savings from the poor, who can ill-afford the loss, state officials said.

Their estimate is based on the decline in deposits in state-run small savings schemes in the past five-six years. This amount is thought to have been diverted to private firms such as those of the Saradha Group, which promised higher returns.

“Companies like these have ruined household savings in West Bengal in every decade since the 1980s, but this crisis is completely different because of its magnitude,” a state government official said, requesting anonymity.

West Bengal is planning to introduce a new law to flush out deposit-taking companies, said Mukul Roy, general secretary of the ruling Trinamool Congress party. However, such a law will take at least six months to be implemented because it would need the consent of the Union government, officials said.

The current crisis, from which a “law-and-order situation has already arisen”, is not a rerun of anything experienced by the state administration before, said the official cited earlier,
A contagion is unavoidable, according to government officials consulted over the crisis, and will only extend people’s losses. Other deposit-taking firms that have yet not defaulted on repayment will collapse one by one because fresh collections will dry up, they said. None of the officials wanted to be named.

The image of the Trinamool Congress, led by chief minister Mamata Banerjee, has taken a severe beating on account of the undeniable proximity of some key Trinamool Congress leaders to deposit-taking companies such as the Saradha Group.

Kunal Ghosh, a Rajya Sabha member nominated by the Trinamool Congress, was editor and chief executive of the Saradha Group’s now mothballed media business.

Ghosh, who could not be contacted despite repeated attempts, said in a Facebook post on Friday that he had joined the Saradha Group as an employee after it entered into an alliance with Sangbad Pratidin, a Bengali newspaper that he edited and that was owned by Srinjoy Bose, another Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member.

The crisis couldn’t have happened at a worse time for Trinamool Congress because the state soon goes to panchayat (village council) polls, ahead of the 2014 general election.

Mukul Roy and commerce and industries minister Partha Chatterjee said no one will be spared if found to have helped the Saradha Group to expand its business, but they tried to dissociate their party from the company.

“Those involved will pay the price, but they are individuals, not the party. You could take these as the chief minister’s words, not just mine,” Chatterjee said, indicating that the Trinamool Congress will weed out some of its leaders to protect its image.

Roy alleged that these deposit-taking companies started business in 2008 or thereabouts with the approval of the erstwhile Left Front government.

But former finance minister Asim Dasgupta said the state government under the Left Front’s rule had launched a probe into the affairs of four such firms, including the Saradha Group. “What happened to these investigations?” he asked.

The investigations were dropped after the Trinamool Congress came to power in 2011, a police officer involved in the matter said, requesting anonymity.

While officials racked their brains at Writers’ Buildings, the state secretariat, the human crisis fast escalated.

At least two people have killed themselves over the past three days over the Saradha Group mess. Urmila Pramanik, 50, who had deposited her savings of Rs.30,000 with the Saradha Group, set herself ablaze on Sunday. She succumbed to burn injuries at a Kolkata hospital.
Another Saradha Group agent in Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas district consumed poison on Sunday after he was attacked at his home by depositors. His condition was last reported to be critical.

Offices of the Saradha Group and other deposit-taking companies were vandalized across the state. Roads were blocked in protest, and skirmishes were reported from across the state over the weekend.

Depositors from across the state said they had thought their money to be safe in the hands of the Saradha Group because of its proximity to Trinamool Congress leaders, which they viewed as official endorsement of its diverse businesses. Most of those, though, did not ever exist, show filings with the Registrar of Companies.
Courtesy:
Romita Datta Mail Me
First Published: Sun, Apr 21 2013. 11 54 PM IST
Updated: Mon, Apr 22 2013. 04 30 PM IST
First Published: Sun, Apr 21 2013. 11 54 PM IST
http://www.livemint.com/Companies/JFrhz2viiI9Kjv1OdATWzJ/Saradha-Group-crisis-deepens-as-depositor-commits-suicide.html

Bengal chit fund boss held in J&K

Srinagar/Kolkata: It was his fear of flying that finally brought Saradha Group boss Sudipta Sen crashing down. The man wanted for defrauding thousands of investors of crores of rupees in Bengal since his chit fund went bust last week, left his footprints at every highway toll plaza during his 2,000km road run and was finally tracked down to a plush hotel in Sonmarg, Jammu & Kashmir, on Tuesday afternoon.

Along with Sen, a Kolkata police team arrested Saradha Group executive director Debjani Mukherjee and Arvind Chauhan, a senior official of the company who handled the Jharkhand operations. Debjani had a meteoric rise in Sen’s firm, rising from receptionist to No. 2 in just three years. Kumar was a trusted aide who did all the driving from Ranchi, say police.

Strangely, Sen left an easyto-follow trail during his crosscountry run by using an SUV with Bengal number plates, staying in expensive hotels and flashing cash all along the way and finally choosing to hide in Kashmir where he would have to show his ID card everywhere he went. Also, by leaving behind his personal driver Bapi at Ranchi, he gave police the first big lead in tracking him down.

According to police, Sen, Debjani and Arvind left Kolkata at 4am on April 10 in a white Scorpio driven by Bapi. They reached Ranchi by afternoon, where Sen ditched the vehicle and asked Bapi to return home. They checked into a hotel, got into another white Scorpio with Bengal number plates and went off the next day.

It was from Bapi that the police got to know about the the Ranchi trip. Cops then tracked down the hotel and got the registration number of the other car (WB22U-6742). Footage from toll plaza records in Ranchi showed that the trio was on their way to Delhi .

The Scorpio was traced in Agra, Delhi, Dehradun, Mussoorie, Haldwani, Haridwar, Bhatinda and Udhampur. But everywhere the information was a day or two late.

The trio reached Srinagar on Monday evening and booked a room in Arvind’s name, say police. Kashmir police noted the WB number plates and raided the hotel. Sen, Debjani and Arvind have been booked under Sections 420, 406 and 506 of IPC.

Debjani’s lawyers, however, accused the police of lying. They say she was held in “confinement” from April 16 and was arrested when she was already on her way to Kolkata to surrender.
Courtesy:
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIM/2013/04/24&PageLabel=15&EntityId=Ar01501&ViewMode=HTML

WEST BENGAL : CHEAT FUND RAJ : Promises On Paper

Bengal’s chit funds often act roguishly, but Mamata needs the media they own
On a rain-lashed monsoon morning, Santosh Bera, 60, who works as a peon in a Calcutta advertising agency, was just setting out to work when his wife rushed in from outside, crying. “They ran away with all our money,” she sobbed. She then confessed that she had secretly invested the Rs 10,000 they had been saving up for a rainy day in a “chit fund”. Every month for the last ten months, she went down to “an office” in Park Circus in central Calcutta and deposited Rs 1,000 with “an agent”, and was handed a receipt scribbled on a chit of paper in return. She was promised that on the twelfth month she would get back double the amount with interest.

But that day, when she went to the chit fund office, “what she found was a double lock on the door,” says Bera.

Pointing out that “Rs 10,000 is a lot of money for people like us and that it takes a lifetime to save,” Bera nevertheless admits that he has recently invested in another chit fund, “because my brother, who has become an agent for one, convinced me in spite of my misgivings”.

Last week, the central corporate affairs department reported that at least 62 dubious chit fund companies are operating in West Bengal and they have amassed  close to Rs 15,000 crore. In December last year, the RBI initiated action against two chit fund companies—Sunmarg Welfare Society and Amazon Capital—for using the name of the regulator to solicit deposits from the public. The RBI issued advertisements clarifying that it would not stand guarantee to the investment options being floated by the two companies.

“In the past, chit funds did not control the media in the way they do now. And we did not depend on such media.”Mohammed Salim, CPI(M) leader   

Congress MP Adhir Chowdhury told Outlook, “We have alerted the prime minister about the widespread prevalence of this dubious non-banking financial institution in Bengal, which I call ‘cheat funds’, because they are cheating hundreds and thousands of poor people from the villages and small towns of their meagre earnings or life’s savings.” TMC MP Somen Mitra has also sent a similar letter to Manmohan Singh, pointing to the chit fund menace in the state.

By all accounts, Bera, the quintessential ‘common man’, fits the third element of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s “Ma, Mati, Manush”. The question is why Mamata, whose avowed ‘honesty and transparency’ (‘shototar protik’) played not a small part in her rise, is not initiating action, or at least an investigation, against these chit fund companies?

The answer to that question is intertwined with the answer to another question: who owns some of the blatantly pro-establishment (read pro-Mamata) broadcast channels and print media houses that have mushroomed over the past few years, ever since the Left has been on the decline? The answer: chit fund companies (see box).

While Mamata has never spoken publicly in favour of chit funds, insiders reveal that “unofficially, she protects them”. In fact, it isn’t even that unofficial, if one considers the fact that among her MPs and MLAs are those who have direct links with chit funds. TMC’s industrialist-MP K.D. Singh owns a chit fund. TMC Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh edits the pro-TMC Bengali daily Sambad Pratidin and is a top boss at Channel 10. In an interview to Outlook, Ghosh lashes out at the indiscriminate stigmatisation of all chit funds, and the “dragging of all the chit funds under one generic ‘shady’ umbrella.”

“A distinction should be made. Not all the chit funds are bad. There are allegations against some and I am not condoning those. All the owners of chit funds should be called by the regulatory authorities and the dealings should be investigated thoroughly and the chit funds should be brought under the regulatory bodies,” he says. Ghosh argues that the present noise about chit funds is politically motivated and a direct fallout of the TMC’s pulling the plug on the UPA-II government. As he points out, “Chit funds grew over a period of several decades, when the Left Front was in power. Why question it now?”

Moreover, he observes that chit fund firms are now all-encompassing, having branched out into areas such as real estate and the hospitality industry, not to mention the media. “Chit fund companies employ thousands of people (he puts the employment figure in media alone to at least 4,000-5,000). If chit funds are shut down, all these jobs will be lost,” says Ghosh. And taking a dig at the mainstream media, which looks down upon chit fund-owned media, Ghosh asks: “The media which is shouting against chit funds, can they do without their ads?” Ghosh has a point. Advertisements of chit funds are ubiquitous in Bengal’s non-chit fund-funded, mainstream media, both print and electronic. Nor are allegations by the TMC, that the sudden flagging of the chit fund issue by the Centre is politically motivated, all that impossible.

“Chit funds grew over decades when the Left was in power. Why question it now? If they’re shut, many will lose jobs.”Kunal Ghosh, Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP   

Scores of people across Bengal—not just in villages and towns but also in Calcutta—have been duped by shady chit fund companies for decades. The notorious Sanchaita episode of the late 1970s, when investors were cheated of hundreds of thousands of rupees, was one of the first such examples.

Making a distinction between the existence of chit funds in their time and now, CPI(M) central committee member Mohammed Salim told Outlook, “What makes it dangerous is that at that time the chit fund owners did not control the media the way they are doing now. And we did not depend on such media to reach out to the people.”

Establishing a link between chit fund companies and the TMC, Salim further points out that the sectors in which the pre-election TMC manifesto promised development included tourism and hospitality—the very same areas where chit fund companies have branched out and channelised funds.

Indeed, TMC members speaking to Outlook did not openly deny close ties with chit fund firms, or even allegations that there exists a symbiotic relationship in which the companies are allowed to thrive in return for the government reaching out to the masses through the media these firms control.

The only thing to which the Trinamool must pay heed—on the pain of popular unrest—is that the masses to whom it reaches out through media flush with chit fund money are made up of the Santosh Beras of Bengal.

Chit fund companies and the channel/publication they patronise:
Sharda Group: Channel 10, Bengal Post, Sakalbela, Azad Hind and Parama
Rose Valley: News Time, Rupasi Bangla, Dhoom (music channel) and Khobor 365.
Angels Group: Abar Jungantor
Shine Group: Shan Bangla
Chakra Group: Ekdin
Rahul Group of Companies: R Plus
Tower Group: Swabhumi, Pratyohik Khobor
Courtesy:
Dola Mitra
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?282655

Receptionist to director in 3 yrs

Kolkata:Debjani Mukherjee, the 27-yearold Saradha Group executive director and group chairman Sudipta Sen’s confidante, was arrested with Sen and Arvind Chauhan, a senior official of the company, from an upmarket hotel in Srinagar on Tuesday. The de-facto Saradha Group number-two, Debjani was Sen’s shadow.

Debjani’s meteoric rise in the company — from a receptionist to the executive director in only three years — is as mysterious as most other things about the organization. Having joined the company as a receptionist-cum-telephone operator in 2008, Debjani moved to the company’s headquarters in seven months, where she found a seat in chairman Sudipta Sen’s chamber.

In a short time, she won Sen’s trust and, in 2011, became a director with Saradha Realty India Ltd. The other directors were Sen’s wife Madhumita, his son Subhojit and daughter Priyanka.

Debjani looked after the group’s banking and HR verticals and was the only person, besides Sen, who had the authority to sign company cheques — which sometimes bore amounts of over Rs 20 lakh. Sources claimed that she also signed several appointment letters.

The cellphone she used till her arrest on Tuesday remained registered in the name of Saradha Tours & Travels. A cell number which Sudipta often used was also registered in Debjani’s name. It was the “official” number provided to Debjani as director in Saradha Realty India (Ltd) and registered at the company’s Sector-V address.

Debjani, sources said, stopped attending office in March — several weeks before Sudipta followed suit. It gives credence to the belief among Saradha employees that Debjani was chalking out a plot for the couple to disappear. Debjani’s father, Timir Baran Mukherjee, was Sen’s close family friend, as was Debjani’s mother Sikha. Many believe that Mukherjee’s close proximity to local CPM leaders helped Sudipta in his rise.

Debjani’s lawyer, Abhisekh Mukherjee, said, “Debjani was asked not to attend office and has not been getting salary for several months. She was coerced into fleeing. In fact, she was thinking of surrendering when she was arrested.”

A former editor in one of a Sen’s publications recollected, “Sen sat next to Debjani in his own chamber. Sen and she appeared to be co-owners. At meetings, they sat on one side and faced us across the table. She was an executive director and was Sen’s eyes and ears. Debjani was also his constant companion on trips to other towns and cities.”

Another employee recounted that visitors to Sen were always vetted by Debjani. However urgent the matter was, it was difficult for anyone to get a call though to Sen without it being routed through Debjani.
Courtesy:
Saibal Sen TNN
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIM/2013/04/25&PageLabel=13&EntityId=Ar01303&ViewMode=HTML

Chit fund chief’s journey from a Naxalite to the ‘king of fraud’

Kolkata:Many have not heard of Shankaraditya Sen, an ambitious Naxal, who later turned into a land shark. Known as Shankar in his neighbourhood at the height of the Naxal movement in the 1970s, he had disappeared over a decade back, only to resurface with a new identity — Sudipta Sen.

The Saradha Group boss, accused of fleecing lakhs of poor investors, had ironically fought for the proletariat. He had met legendary Naxal leader Charu Mazumdar on a number of occasions and was even jailed in 1971-72 for pursuing the ultras’ cause.

Born in the mid-1950s (Sen’s passport mentions the date as March 30, 1959), he was the third among four siblings — Shukla, Shiladitya, Shankaraditya and Bikramaditya. His parents — Nripendranarayan and Renukana Sen — had migrated to Kolkata from Dhaka during Partition. “My fatherin-law worked at the Survey of India while my mother-in-law was at Calcutta Telephones,” said Sen’s brother’s wife.

Onkar Singh, a one-time neighbour and friend of Shankar, recounted the strong Naxalite base at the Entally neighbourhood in the 1960s and ’70s. “Shankar was a good orator. He could speak at length and hold people’s attention. Perhaps Charu Mazumdar saw some potential in him when he visited the area,” Singh said.

The turning point for Shankar came in jail where he met other Naxals as well as criminals and mid-rung politicians. By the time he stepped out, Shankar was a different man. He seemed to have wiped off the ultra-Left ideology and embraced capitalism. Using the network he developed in jail, Shankar turned into a land broker. “Even at that early stage, he had lofty ambitions. It was quite clear that he was not content being a small broker,” recounted an aide.

Over the next few years, he gained experience in a series of land deals in south Kolkata. By the mid-1980s, he had formed his own network.

“His new ring comprised many powerful people, including the very policemen who had arrested him. Many cops from the dreaded anti-Naxalite squad of Runu Guha Niyogi joined his team,” said a former ally of Shankar.

Shankar married Madhumita in the mid 1980s. A few years after that he moved out of his parent’s house with his wife and son, severing ties with the rest of the family. He met his family only twice after that.

“Shankar had turned a complete stranger. So much so that after our mother died in 2005, we were unable to contact him,” said Bikramaditya. None of the siblings knows when he changed his name, but they presume it could be some time towards the end of the 1990s or the beginning of the 2000s. The first document to carry his new identity was the passport issued in 2004.

Sudipta Sen alias Shankaraditya Sen had met Naxal leader Charu Mazumdar on a number of occasions and was jailed in 1971-72 for pursuing the ultras’ cause
Courtesy:
Caesar Mandal TNN
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Client.asp?Daily=TOIM&showST=true&login=default&pub=TOI&Enter=true&Skin=TOINEW