Six cases filed against Saradha boss, gets 14 days’s police remand

Kolkata  :  Six cases – four for non payment of salaries to employees and two others for duping depositors – have been filed against arrested Saradha Group promoter Sudipta Sen, who was remanded to 14 days’ police custody by a court Thursday.

While one depositor complained that he lost Rs.40,000, the other alleged being duped of Rs. 1 lakh, Bidhannagar Deputy Commissioner Arnab Ghosh told media persons here.

“One of these two cases relate to Saradha Tours and Travels, and another to Saradha Realty India Limited,” Ghosh said.

However, the first three complaints against Sen were lodged by representatives of television channels and newspapers run by Saradha Media, the Group’s media wing April 16 for non-payment of salaries for the past few months after the units closed down. Another such case was filed April 18.

Sen and his two key aides – group executive director Debjani Mukherjee and another company official Arvind Singh Chauhan – were nabbed from Kashmir Tuesday. All three were given 14 days’ police remand by a Bidhannagar court Thursday.

“They were produced on the charge of cheating and misappropriation today (Thursday). We will produce them in court as per rules in the other five cases in due course,” said Ghosh.

Asked whether the accused have revealed anything about their complicity in the cases, the officer said: “We cannot tell everything explicitly for the sake of investigation. The preliminary interrogation has been conducted. We have just got their custody. So we cannot stay right now whether they are cooperating”.

With another director Manoj Kumar Nagel arrested earlier, so far four people have been arrested in the case.

“We will question all the other seven board of directors. If their complicity is established, they will be arrested,” said Ghosh.

However, he said it was established by quizzing one director Hemant Pradhan that he was only a cook.

Debjani, on the other hand, “had a role in decision making”, and the cops have got her laptop but were yet to unearth information from it.

Police have also seized some other laptops too.

Ghosh said premilinary investigation have revealed that Chauhan -in charge of the Group’s Jharkhand operations – was involved in the company’s affairs in West Bengal.

Police were yet to seek any assistance from agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Securities and exchange Board of India.

Asked whether there were plans to question former police officers who were said to have been close to Sen, he said: “If need be it will be done”.

Photo  : AFP