Hummingbird News Desk
BURDWAN, 10 DEC: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today arrested Pranab Chatterjee, the administrator of the Burdwan municipality and a prominent Trinamul Congress leader in a chit fund scam. He has been arrested on charges of his involvement with a chit fund company that was operating till 2013.
‘Bardhaman Sanmarg Welfare Society’ – the company was headquartered at a market plaza owned by Chatterjee. Chatterjee was booked by the CBI on charges of criminal breach of trust, Criminal Conspiracy (Under Sections – 409 and 120-B of the IPC).
The present case revolves around an FIR that was registered by CBI’s Economic Offences Unit in Kolkata in October 2018.
He was arrested from his residence in Burdwan town today and his office at the market plaza also was raided by two different teams of the CBI. His wife Rekha Chatterjee also was quizzed for nearly half an hour.
Chatterjee was produced before the CBI Court in Asansol today where he was ordered three days CBI custody. “On Monday he’ll be produced at the Court further. The investigating officials came to know that Chatterjee acted as the Legal Advisor of the chit fund that had eaten up several crores of rupees of depositor’s money,” said a lawyer.
On 28 May, 2013, the police had raided the office of the chit fund company at Chatterjee’s plaza and had booked five staff and 19 agents of the company following complaints by a depositor Sujit Basu who complained about non-payment of maturity though the stipulated time was over. Later the Calcutta High Court ordered CBI investigation into the chit fund scam and Bardhaman Sanmarg’s matter also was included, accordingly.
In May 2014, the Supreme Court had directed the CBI to take over the investigations of all ponzi chit fund schemes in which lakhs of small depositors were duped in West Bengal and Odisha.
“It was alleged that the accused persons allured the public at large to invest in their schemes with a promise of high rate of returns at maturity without the requisite permission from the regulatory authorities. It was further alleged that a large number of investors invested their hard-earned money with the trust,” said the CBI in a statement issued on Friday.
“During the investigation, it was revealed that the said arrested accused (Pranab Chatterjee) was closely associated with the company,” said the CBI.
The chit company, as stated Rekha Chatterjee: “Had hired one accommodation in our plaza in March, 2011 where they officially mentioned that the space would be used to run the office headquarters of its power-loom textile division. They were just our tenants, which I told to the CBI.”
Trinamul Congress district spokesperson, Prasenjit Das said, “It is a conspiracy hatched by the BJP to malign our leader in a chit fund case.”
Chatterjee meanwhile was appointed as the Administrator of the Burdwan Municipality by the state department of Urban Development in June, this year.
Tags: #PonzyScam #BurdwanMunicipalityAdministrator #Arrested #ChitFund