Yet another Trinamool Congress MP has been summoned for questioning in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund case. Actor-turned politician Shatabdi Roy has been asked by the Enforcement Directorate to appear before it on Wednesday morning to answer some specific queries in the ponzi fund case, ED sources said.
Roy a second-time MP from Birbhum was summoned by the ED to explain her connection with the Saradha company and its jailed chief Sudipto Sen. The actor who was Saradha’s brand ambassador had earlier said that hers was a pure professional relationship with the company.
The ED wants to understand the nature of deals between the two sides, fees paid as also the reasons behind her visits to the Saradha headquarters at Midland Park in Salt lake, sources said. Earlier Bollywoood star-turned-Trinamool MP Mithun Chakrabarty had deposited with the ED `1.20 crore which he had reportedly taken from Saradha for brand endorsement.
The summons comes soon after the Supreme Court hearing a petition by senior Advocate and former Kolkata Mayor Bikash Bhattacharya expressed its dissatisfaction over the slow pace of the probe. The CBI, the other Central agency which was supposed to submit its final chargesheet in July, had not been able to give a clear date by which it could do so leading to the Bengal Opposition parties to feel that the agency was trying to provide oxygen to the Trinamool Congress and more so Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The Opposition parties in Bengal feel that the submission of charge-sheet was being deliberately delayed to help the Trinamool Congress and Mamata. “Delayed submission of the charge-sheet would not only help Mamata Banerjee to sail through the next year’s State elections but also rob the petitioners opportunity to challenge the contents of the charge sheet in time if the Agencies prefer to omit her name or for that matter the names of her other senior colleagues,” said a senior CPI(M) leader.
Meanwhile, ED sources said the agency would attach a huge Saradha property in a few days. The market price of the property is valued at `250 crore. “We are in process of issuing a big attachment order in a few days’ time” sources said. With the attachment of this property the total value of the attachments made by the ED could go up to `500 crore, sources said.
The property is located in Kolkata, and the attachment order might have resulted from a marathon grilling of Sudipto Sen recently, sources said adding Sen who had although kept mum for the past two years is reported to have divulged vital leads regarding the involvement of some top ruling party politicians as also the locations of some of the properties which he alleged were being misappropriated by the said netas.
The reason behind Sen’s growing disgust for the Trinamool politicians was there increasing tendency to make him the scapegoat while getting them absolved from all charges, sources maintained.