If court wants, there will be CBI probe in Saradha scam: Mamata

With the Opposition demanding a CBI enquiry into the Saradha chit fund scam, chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said a probe by the central investigating agency could take place if the court wanted it.

‘There is cry for CBI. What does it matter to me? If the court wants, there will be a CBI enquiry,’ Banerjee told an election meeting here.

She said justice was yet to be got in the CBI probes into the Jnaneswari Express railway disaster which had claimed over 100 lives in 2010 and in the Nandigram police firing in 2007.

Stating that her party, the Trinamool Congress, was being dragged into the Saradha controversy, she dwelt on the action that her government had taken since the ponzi bubble burst and said that money was returned to small depositors.

She said that the Saradha cases were investigated and referred to the arrest of Sudipta Sen, the group’s chief from Kashmir in April last year along with two others as also party Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh in November last year.

‘We have sent our own party MP to jail. I made him an MP. I had no idea that a journalist can be such a crook’, she said. 

She said that partial refunds had been given to four lakh defrauded depositors of Saradha and another two lakh would be compensated.

Stating that the rules for chit fund operations were framed by the Centre and that such companies were in operation since the Left Front was in power in the state, she referred to the legislation framed by her government which was awaiting clearance from Delhi.

Holding up an edition of ‘Dial’, a telephone directory published by CPI(M) mouthpiece ‘Ganasakti’, she claimed to show Saradha advertisements in it as also a purported photograph of former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee with a chit fund company owner in a newspaper.

Demanding that the CPI(M) return the funds of defrauded investors and the money for advertisements given by the Saradha Group, she alleged, ‘CPI(M) is the big brother of Sarada. The mother of the thief shouts the loudest.’ 

She said that there was not a single Saradha advertisement in ‘Jago Bangla’, the party mouthpiece.