Tapas Paul remanded to judicial custody by Khurda Court

MP Tapas Paul has been remanded to judicial custody after being produced before Khurda Court at Bhubaneswar in Odisha on Friday.

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Paul after marathon interrogation in connection with the Rose Valley group’s chit fund scam on December 30. He was taken to Bhubaneswar where he had spent six days in CBI’s custody.

Sabyasachi Banerjee, Paul’s counsel, submitted before the court that Paul had received salary of Rs 80,000 for working in the company. He had worked only for five months and he had given resignation as well. Then, how could one claim that he was involved with the scam.

Pleading for bail, Banerjee further submitted that Paul’s health is not well and he was also ready to stay in Bhubaneswar itself if given bail.

CBI counsel, Kalicharan Mishra, who is also the deputy legal advisor of the investigating agency, submitted that though Paul used to work as one of the directors of the film division of the group. But investigation revealed that there was no such board for film division of which he was the director. He pleaded before the court for full term judicial custody of the MP. The court granted the plea of the CBI.

Meanwhile, officers of CBI in Bhubaneswar received a letter that was sent by the officers of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Kolkata. Sources said that the letter contains finding of the ED’s probe in connection with the Rose Valley Group’s scam.

It is learnt that the letter contains name of 11 “influential” people and among them two were MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay and MP Tapas Paul. Sources said that the “influential” people, whose names appeared in the letter, had helped the Rose Valley Group chief Gautam Kundu to continue collecting money through chit fund schemes.

The daughter of one of them was also helped by the group to establish her own business.