The Calcutta High Court on Thursday observed that it has “limitations” over monitoring the investigating agencies probing the Saradha money collection scam. This observation came after senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, counsel for one of the petitioners who appealed for a CBI probe into the multi-crore scam, demanded formation of a team of central and State investigating agencies to be monitored by the Court.
Hearing the petition, a Division Bench of Justice A. K. Banerjee and Justice M. K. Chaudhuri said: “We have our limitations…We have to find out a mechanism.”
Multi-state offence
Bhattacharya further said that the Court should take appropriate actions to “tame” any of the agencies involved in the probe. “You (the Court) can monitor to the extent where there are complaints against any of the investigating agencies,” he said.
The Saradha money collection scam is a multi-state offence and its ‘enormity is huge,’ he added. According to him, the estimated sum collected stands at approximately Rs 25,000 crore.
Bhattacharya also raised concerns over the efficiency of the Special Investigation Team set up by the State Government. The team, which includes the Director General and Inspector General of Police, may not be able to do justice to the investigation process as their hands are full maintaining law and order in the State, he said.
On Thursday, the Bidhannagar police filed a charge-sheet against Sudipta Sen, director of the Saradha Group, and his associates, in connection with two cases registered under its jurisdiction. Bhattacharya told the Court that there were loopholes in the charge-sheet as the accused was not charged under Section 120 B of the IPC, which deals with criminal conspiracy.