Kolkata:
The Central Bureau of Investigation today registered 46 First Information Reports or FIRs in the Saradha chit fund scam. Among those named are businessman Sudipta Sen, who headed the Saradha Group, and Kunal Ghosh, the Trinamool Congress MP who was sacked after the scam surfaced.
The Saradha Group had collapsed in April, 2013, leaving lakhs of small investors bankrupt in West Bengal and Orissa. In this first set of FIRs, the CBI has registered three cases in West Bengal and 43 in Odisha with charges that include criminal conspiracy (120-B of the IPC), cheating (420) and breach of trust (405).
Apart from Sudipta Sen and Kunal Ghosh, who headed the Saradha group's media companies, cases have also been registered against Debjani Banerjee (Executive Director), Manoj Nagel (Director), Aurobindo Chauhan, Somnath Datta, Arth Tatwa chief Pradip Sethi and Seashore Group head Prasant Das. Cases against the last two were filed in Odisha.
Sudipta Sen and Kunal Ghosh are in jail.
The Supreme Court had last month ordered the CBI to probe "the involvement of higher-ups including politicians and aspects of money laundering."
"The money trail needs to be traced, the conspiracy angle needs to be probed properly. Not much headway has been made so far," the top court had added.
The verdict was viewed as a setback for West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, whose party was accused by opponents of close links with the Saradha Group. Among those who flagged the issue during the campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls was Prime Minister Narendra Modi, provoking strong responses from Ms Banerjee and her party.
The Saradha group, headquartered in Kolkata, mobilized a huge amount of money from its depositors.
The collapse a year ago of the giant ponzi scheme, which offered massive returns of 40 per cent and more, had triggered huge protests; three investors had committed suicide.
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays out returns to investors based on inflows of money put in by other savers, and is liable to collapse if receipts dry up.
Ms Banerjee had announced a Rs. 500 crore fund to compensate investors and said that she would increase taxes on cigarettes by 10 percent to raise money.