http://im.rediff.com/news/2013/apr/23sudipta-sen-letter-to-cbi.pdf Sudipta Sen letter of 6 April 2013 to CBI which set the scam investigation rolling.
| Sunday , February 1 , 2015 |
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150201/jsp/frontpage/story_11047.jsp#.VM1nkdKUeSo
| Sunday , February 1 , 2015 |
CBI arrests Sinh in Saradha case |
| Our Bureau and Agencies |
 Matang Sinh after his arrest. Picture by Mayukh Sengupta A source said Sinh, a former Congress MP from Assam, was called to the CBI headquarters in Calcutta and grilled for over seven hours. He was arrested on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating and misappropriation of funds in the Saradha Realty case, a CBI spokesperson said. The arrest became imminent as he was not cooperating with the CBI's Special Investigation Team, which is probing the Saradha scam. Recently, the CBI had arrested Saradha Realty director Shibnarayan Das, whose interrogation had given some vital leads about the alleged role of Sinh in the case. Arriving at the CBI complex in Calcutta this morning for the first time to face questions regarding his business transactions with Saradha group chief Sudipto Sen, Sinh had told reporters, "Getting into a business deal is not a crime." He also said "I do not know Sudipto Sen" and that he had "submitted money to the Shyamal Sen Commission", which was formed soon after the Saradha scam broke, to repay investors. Sinh is the second person to be arrested from Assam in connection with the Saradha scam. The first was singer Sadananda Gogoi, who was arrested in Calcutta on September 12 last year. Gogoi was named in the second chargesheet filed on November 17, 2014. Sources said an affidavit submitted by the Bengal government in the Supreme Court last year had stated that according to a letter purportedly written by Sen to the CBI, Sinh had taken Rs 28 crore from Sen as part of a deal to sell off 50 per cent share in NE Bangla, a Bengali channel of the Sinh-owned media group Positiv TV Pvt Ltd. Sinh is learnt to have told the CBI that there was an agreement between him and Sen in 2010 that he would pay a certain sum against the shares. It deal was, however, cancelled in 2013. "... Recently Rajesh Bajaj, a businessman of Guwahati, negotiated with Matang and cancelled the agreement of the share holdings and issued post-dated cheques of Rs 28 crores... all the cheques under the cancellation agreement are lying with Rajesh Bajaj..." the letter mentions. "I had cancelled the agreement after Sen failed to comply with it. I have already given my statement to Shyamal Sen Commission and Sen had agreed there," Sinh reportedly told the CBI during interrogation today. Halfway into the interrogation, the CBI called in Bajaj and the two were confronted in the presence of senior CBI officers on the second floor interrogation room of the joint director, Special Investigation Team. "During this face to face, several irregularities cropped up. In the fourth phase of interrogation, when we again grilled Matang on the irregularities that had surfaced, he refused to speak up," said a senior CBI official. "There are several threads that still need to be untangled in the Saradha Realty's Northeast operations, including who all turned up at the Guwahati office and what was the role of some of the influential people of the region," the CBI official said. "We will seek Matang's custody when he is produced tomorrow." Sinh later complained of stomach pain and was admitted to NRS hospital in Calcutta, doctors in the hospital said. The Enforcement Directorate had also questioned Sinh in Delhi in May last year in connection with the scam. In August last year, CBI sleuths had searched his house in Delhi and Guwahati and seized documents in connection with investigations into the Saradha scam. The CBI had also carried out searches in the offices of NE Television, a news channel in Guwahati, and Frontier Television, a news channel owned by Sinh's estranged wife Manoranjana Sinh. The CBI had also questioned Manoranjana in Calcutta last year about her financial transaction with Sen, who had claimed a payment of Rs 25 crore as investment in Frontier Television, which, like NE Television, is non-operational now. "A CBI officer called me around 5pm and asked me to visit their Salt Lake office. I reached there within 30 minutes. Their questions to me focused on the agreement I had signed with Sen. They wanted to know about the financial transactions between me and Saradha," Manoranjana had told The Telegraph on August 24 last year. Efforts to contact her today proved futile. Sources said Sinh has no investment in Focus TV, which is what NE TV is called now. The licence has been reportedly leased out to Jindal group, which runs the channel under the name of NE Focus. Sinh was born at Hijuguri in Tinsukia district of Upper Assam on August 22, 1962. He was elected to Parliament as a member of the Rajya Sabha from Assam in 1992. He became the minister of state for parliamentary affairs in the government of the late Narasimha Rao in 1993. However, he was expelled from the Congress in 2000 for "anti-party activities". Haren Das, the organisational in-charge of Assam PCC, who was in the know about the disciplinary proceedings against Sinh as the then chairman of the PCC's legal cell, said the former MP was never taken back into the party after his expulsion. Sources said though Sinh made attempts to get back into the Congress fold, his "indifferent ties" with chief minister Tarun Gogoi, among others, came in the way. Of late, he was more known for his business interest in TV channels. On the arrest, Das said, "Law will take its own course". Two senior Congress MLAs, who were also former ministers, have also been questioned by the CBI in the case. Before being appointed as the Assam PCC president, Anjan Dutta was quizzed by the agency in Calcutta in November followed by Himanta Biswa Sarma in the same month. The residences of both were also searched in August. |