The Enforcement Directorate on Friday interrogated Trinamul MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay for almost seven hours to find out the extent of his alleged involvement with the Gautam Kundu-owned Rose Valley Group.
The deposit mobilising company is under the scanner for reportedly collecting Rs 17,000 crore from the public by luring people with high returns.
The CBI had earlier arrested Bandyopadhyay — a former Union minister and a four-time MP — in January 2017 for his alleged involvement with the Rose Valley group. He was released four months later.
“We wanted to know several things about Rose Valley and his association with the firm. The MP has clarified few things and made it clear that he was ignorant of the Rose Valley’s modus operandi. There are certain claims that need to be backed up by definite documents,” said a senior ED officer. “We might need to question him once again.”
The ED alleged that between 2009 and 2010, Bandyopadhyay had attended a few meetings of the Rose Valley Group that cashed in on his influence to win the trust of potential investors.
Central investigating agencies have claimed that Kundu had paid flight fares for one of Bandyopadhyay’s foreign trips through a travel agent.
The MP clarified on Friday that he had later paid for the ticket once he realised that someone else had apparently paid for it.
Bandyopadhyay was the only Trinamul MP who couldn’t attend the party’s core-committee meeting chaired by Mamata Banerjee on Friday.
The livid chief minister alleged conspiracy by the BJP-led Centre to harass and intimidate her party.
“Can anybody tell me, what has Sudipda done? He had got an air ticket upgrade, for which he paid back the money. For that, they held him in jail for months,” said Mamata in a news conference on Friday evening.
“He is being questioned for hours, he was not allowed to come to this crucial meeting. There is no basic courtesy…. I want them to remember that central probe agencies cannot be used to scare us into silence,” she added.
The ED is also probing into a web of financial transactions that the Rose Valley Group had followed in allegedly collecting thousands of crores of rupees from the public and whether some of the money had found its way beyond Calcutta.
