Although the CBI has not yet been able to get the police custody of former Union Minister Matang Sinh in the Saradha chit fund scam case, it has reasons to believe that his interrogation could lead to further discoveries regarding his associations with other senior bureaucrats.
The CBI is tight-lipped over the circumstances and evidence on the basis of which it decided to go ahead with the arrest of the former Minister. However, it is learnt that he allegedly made frantic calls to his contacts when he realised that he was going to be arrested on January 31. A young woman, who had accompanied him to the CBI office in Kolkata, was also spotted making calls purportedly in an attempt to stall his arrest.
It is alleged that at Mr. Sinh’s instance, the then Home Secretary Anil Goswami contacted an agency official in a bid to influence the investigating team’s decision. After several hours of questioning, he was finally arrested. “The agency was left with no choice but to arrest him in the Saradha case,” said an official. This is the first time Mr. Sinh has been arrested by the CBI in any case. He was earlier charge-sheeted in another case of cheating a nationalised bank of Rs. 67 crore in 2013, but was not arrested.
“Based on a complaint lodged by the Canara Bank, the agency’s bank security and forgery unit had registered the earlier case in 2011. Investigations revealed that Ms. Sinh had applied for a loan of Rs.70 crore for a company, M3 Media Private Limited. He allegedly floated several fake companies and got generated false invoices showing purchase of infrastructure and technology,” said a senior CBI official.
Based on the documents, the bank released Rs.67 crore in loan for the company. However, the firm allegedly defaulted on loan repayment causing huge losses to the bank. “The bank declared the account non-performing assets and sent a complaint to the CBI. In 2013, we filed a charge sheet against Mr. Sinh and two chartered accountants who were allegedly involved in the conspiracy to cheat the bank,” said the official.
