Comments
Former State Finance Minister and CPI (M) leader Asim Dasgupta on Sunday criticised the West Bengal Government’s delay in not attaching properties of the Saradha Group to return money due to those duped by the company. The decision to dole out cheques to investors as a “grant” was also criticised.
The Saradha Group had gone bust earlier this year, affecting thousands of investors across the State.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had last month handed out cheques to 929 such defrauded investors from the economically weaker sections. The cheques were handed out to people who had invested up to Rs 10,000, as per the recommendations of the Shyamal Sen Commission.
Grant, Loan
According to Dasgupta, the State Government should have seized, attached and sold-off properties belonging to the Saradha Group to recover the money. Laws framed by market regulator SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India), and directives from the Calcutta High Court also state the same, he claimed.
“Ideally, the State Government should have attached properties belonging to the Saradha Group and then used them to return money. Also, state finances should not be used to repay those duped,” he told reporters during a press conference.
The State Government, the former finance minister claimed, had in a Government order on September 23 maintained that the amount would be considered as a “State grant”.
“Ideally, it would should have been considered as a loan advance to the corpus created for returning money,” Dasgupta said.
Central agency probe
The State Government had announced the setting up of a Rs 500-crore corpus to return money to those who had been duped in the scam. According to Dasgupta, the State Government should look forward to attaching properties of the Saradha Group and other accused in the scam. Since the Group’s properties are spread across States, ideally a Central agency should be asked to probe the matter.
“A central sgency like the CBI should be asked to probe into the matter. The Centre too should intervene here,” Dasgupta said.
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.