KOLKATA: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) will soon summon two celebrity MPs of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) to quiz them over their alleged involvement in the `2,500 crore Saradha chit fund scam, in which several lakh investors were duped in West Bengal.
The duo– yesteryear Bollywood hero and Rajya Sabha member Mithun Chakraborty and Shatabdi Roy, who has been re-elected from Birbhum Lok Sabha seat– had links with the Saradha Group.
An ED official on Wednesday said that both Mithun and Shatabdi would be asked to furnish details of their contracts with the group and provide data of the monetary compensation received. They would also be asked whether they helped the group to mobilise funds from the public.
Mithun used to anchor a Bengali programme on one of the TV channels owned by the group in an “honorary capacity” but not as a brand ambassador. Nonetheless, the actor was paid for his services and the channel still owes him Rs 52 lakh in this regard.
By the time the scam came into public focus, Mithun was no longer associated with the TV channel.Not only that, he was also not keen on receiving his appearance fee since it would have to be deposited to the Justice Shyamal Sen Commission appointed by the Mamata Banerjee Government to recover the money from those, who had ties with the Saradha Group.
Shatabdi had been a high-profile presence in several programmes organised by the group along with its chairman Sudipto Sen, who is now cooling his heels in prison, following his arrest from Sonemarg in Jammu and Kashmir in April last.
And she had publicly stated during a function that she was proud to be a brand ambassador of the Saradha Group. But after details of the group’s financial wrongdoing emerged, Shatabdi had clarified that other than working for Saradha in her capacity as a professional actor she was not aware of its fraudulent activities.
Interestingly, the two star MPs are in denial over receiving the ED summons. Despite that, they have vowed to cooperate with the agency, including making themselves available for quizzing in connection with the probe into the multi-crore scam.
Meanwhile, the ED sleuths have drawn up two lists--one of people, including the celebrities, who were associated with Saradha and had received monetary compensation either for their performances or lending their names to the brand, and another of persons, including some top politicians and police officials, who had received funds.
The ED has already questioned dramatist Arpita Ghosh, who is now a TMC MP from Balurghat, several times though she was the one, who first lodged an FIR against Sudipto in April last for not paying the salaries to the staff of a television channel run by the group.
The ED and the CBI are jointly probing the scam, which spans several states. The West Bengal government had strongly protested against the CBI probe as the names of several TMC Ministers and MPs allegedly figured among those, who reportedly received monetary benefits from Sudipto.