Trinamool Congress MP and Bengali film actor Satabdi Roy, who has been facing probe in the Saradha chit fund scam has returned around Rs 30.64 lakhs to the Enforcement Directorate. She has stated that she had received the money from the tainted Saradha group for being its brand ambassador.
Roy had handed a bank draft of the amount to ED officials on September 2 (Monday), the ED sources said confirming that it was delivered through a messenger.
The TMC leader had charged Rs 49 lakh for signing up a contract with the Saradha group to work like its brand ambassador when the Ponzi scam was operating and fleecing ordinary people by offering lucrative schemes with high returns to its customers.
The MP, however, claimed that she had received Rs 30.64 lakh of the contract amount excluding taxes which she returned.
In mid-June 2015, former TMC Rajya Sabha MP and Bollywood actor Mithun Chakraborty had also returned Rs 1.16 crore he had received from the same group to ED.
The Saradha Scam was brought to light in 2013. Many political leaders like TMC leader Derek O’ Brien, Education Minister Partha Chatterjee and Bengali film actors like Prasenjit Chatterjee, Rituparna Sengupta, and Madan Mitra were summoned by the ED for their alleged connection with this Ponzi scheme that was run by a consortium of over 200 companies. Ex-Kolkata top cop Rajeev Kumar was also under the scanner in the Saradha Chit Fund scam.
The Saradha Group had reportedly collected more than 200 billion rupees from lakhs of small investors. The Group had collapsed in April 2013 and a year later, the Supreme Court of India had ordered the CBI to take over the investigation from the state SIT.
The CBI had also alleged that the CM Mamta Banerjee government of West Bengal is impeding the investigations going on in the multi-crore Saradha ponzi scam. It has alleged that the “hostile” government is delaying the filing of the final charge sheet. It further stated that the banking security fraud branch, special crime branch and the economic offender wings of the premier investigative agency had been rendered non-operational after West Bengal had withdrawn the general consent to CBI, last year.
