Mamata vs CBI: All you need to know about Saradha scam

His brief was concise but firm: "Conclude investigations in the next few months." CBI special director Rakesh Asthana, on a visit to Kolkata on June 18, told officers investigating the Saradha, Narada and Rose Valley ponzi scams to file final chargesheets within three months.Several senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders and MPs are named in the scams. With less than a year to go for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Asthana's nudge to the investigators is causing speculation whether the CBI is under political pressure to embarrass Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her government."This is nothing but politics of revenge," said state education minister and TMC spokesman Partha Chatterjee. "They are trying to malign our party because our supremo has raised her voice against demonetisation, GST, Aadhaar and rightly criticised the BJP government (at the Centre)."In the past few years, the CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED) have made little progress in the three cases, barring the arrest of TMC heavyweights Madan Mitra and Sudip Bandyopadhyay, summons to 10 other TMC leaders and the filing of six supplementary chargesheets..preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}In the Saradha scam, only the chit fund company's chairperson, Sudipta Sen, and his alleged accomplice Debjani Mukhopadhyay are in jail. The lone arrest in the Rose Valley scam has been of the group's director Goutam Kundu. In the Narada scam, 13 CBI and ED FIRs have named three incumbent state ministers and five TMC MPs, but no arrests have been made. The last time the central agencies swung into some action was August 2017 when Kolkata mayor Sovon Chatterjee and MP Sougata Roy were brought in for questioning.Last year, the CBI moved the Supreme Court alleging non-cooperation from the state CID and special investigation team (SIT). The agency said the state police were refusing to part with the case files and CBI officers were being called in for questioning in fake cases. The court ruled in December 2017 that no CBI official could be summoned by the West Bengal police.Last year also saw CID crackdowns on BJP leaders. The CID grilled BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and the party's Roopa Ganguly in connection with a child trafficking case in northern Bengal. Another BJP leader, former Basirhat MLA Shamik Bhattacharya, was questioned over alleged irregularities relating to the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. The charges were brought around July-August when the ED was questioning TMC leaders in the Narada scam.Then, things suddenly fell silent, with the ED and CBI citing shortage of officers as many investigators in the three scams sought transfers out of West Bengal. They were allegedly being harassed by the state police.ED officials maintain they have been busy gathering evidence all this while. "In the Narada scam, at least three TMC leaders have substantially satisfied us, but many are in a deep mess," an ED official said.The CBI took over the Saradha probe on the Supreme Court's directions in 2014. Investigations into the Rose Valley and Narada scams, too, were transferred to the CBI on the court's orders. "If a few TMC names figure in the final chargesheets and the trial begins, it might put a question mark on the candidature of a few politicians," said a CBI official.Published By: Pallavi KumarPublished On: Jul 8, 2018--- ENDS ---

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Mamata vs CBI: All you need to know about Saradha scam

The ruling party alleges a political vendetta behind the Saradha, Narada and Rose Valley investigations.

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