The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered 46 cases in the Saradha chit fund scam involving over Rs.10,000 crore of public investments in schemes promising astronomical returns. The agency is likely to register more cases soon.
“In West Bengal, three cases have been registered under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code against the Saradha group of companies, the group head Sudipta Sen, the former chief executive officer of its media venture Kunal Ghosh and its then directors Debjani Banerjee, Manoj Kumar Nagel, Aurobindo Chauhan and Somnath Datta,” a CBI officer said.
While these cases cover the four front-runner companies of the Saradha group in Odisha, the CBI has registered separate cases against 43 companies and their then managing directors and directors on allegations of cheating, criminal breach of trust, conspiracy and related offences.
“Other documents are being scrutinised to decide further course of action. Papers of certain other firms are in the process of being collected for scrutiny,” said the official.
Following a Supreme Court directive, the CBI last month constituted a Special Investigation Team under Joint Director (North-East) Rajeev Singh to probe the scam that caused severe financial distress to thousands of small-time investors in West Bengal, Odisha and north-eastern States.
