The CBI on Wednesday filed the first chargesheet in the Saradha mulit-crore chit fund case naming three prime accused Sudipto Sen, Debjani Mukherjee and suspended Trinamool MP Kunal Ghosh and their companies. The CBI said more names would be added in the supplementary chargesheets that would follow “in due course.”
Though the three-member CBI team that appeared in the City Sessions Court in Kolkata remained tight-lipped, their lawyer said that it was a “preliminary chargesheet” and that it “contains the names of the three prime accused” and their four companies, including Saradha Tours and Travel, Saradha Realty, Saradha Constructions, Saradha Gardens apart from Ghosh’s Strategy Media limited.
The lawyer also said that the CBI had submitted the preliminary chargesheet within the stipulated 90 days of the beginning of the case and more names would follow in the supplementary chargesheet.
The accused have been charged under sections 409, 420 120B, 406 of the Indian Penal Code, sources said, adding charges have also been brought under Sections 4 and 6 of the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978.
Sources further said that the papers submitted before the court contained a detailed history of the ongoing probe and added they would “continue to investigate into the larger conspiracy angle as names of many influential persons have cropped up during interrogations.”
The investigators are “likely to issue summons to some influential persons and record their statements by the next week.” “Further investigation under section 173 (8) of CrPC continues to probe the role of other accused persons and financial transactions,” a CBI spokesperson said in New Delhi.
Meanwhile, the term of Shyamal Sen Commission set up in April last year by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to enquire into the scam and return the money belonging to the depositors, ended prompting the BJP to launch a no-holds-barred attack on her for trying to use the Sen Commission for erasing the footprints of the real scamsters who were involved in the chit fund scam affecting lakhs of people.
Demanding the report of the Sen Commission to be made public, BJP State president Rahul Sinha on Wednesday said “The Government only bamboozled the people by setting up the Commission. They tried to block the CBI enquiry by bringing the Commission. But once the Supreme Court ordered a CBI probe the Commission’s purpose is over. So the Government is discontinuing it.”
Sinha also refuted the Chief Minister’s claim of compensating 5 lakh depositors through the Commission. “The number of the cheques that have been issued is 3,95,162 and not 5 lakh as claimed by the Chief Minister,” Sinha said reminding “there were many people who got more than one3 cheques reducing the number of those getting their money back even further.”
He also criticised the Commission for failing to fulfill its terms of reference. “It was also tasked with identifying those involved in the scam which it failed” he said, adding “it even failed to confiscate the Saradha properties which was left to be done by the ED.”