The Central Bureau of Investigation has said that the arrest of two TMC leaders for their alleged role in the Rose Valley ponzi scam has no connection with the party's strong opposition to noteban and was merely "co-incidental".
"The probe into the Rose Valley scam had started in 2014. Collection of evidence in this huge scam requires considerable amount of time and was started long before the demonetisation decision came in November," a senior CBI official told PTI.
"The time of arrest of the two MPs post demonetisation is nothing but a coincidence," he said.
TMC Lok Sabha MPs Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Tapas Paul were arrested by CBI based on complaints filed in Bhubaneswar in connection with the Rose Valley scam and the two are now in custody. The remark comes at a time when TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee leads the opposition’s charge in targeting the government over the note ban decision. Mamata had alleged that the arrest of its party MPs was pure vendetta politics being abetted by the central government.
Mamata had also termed the CBI as the ‘Conspiracy Bureau of Investigation’.
Without naming anyone, the CBI official said several big politicians of both the ruling Trinamool Congress and Opposition were on the radar of CBI.
"We will interrogate all those who were associated with the Rose Valley Group or were financially benefited from it," the CBI official said.
The official said the money involved in the scam was nearly Rs 17,000 crore, more than five times that in the Saradha chit fund scam.
Comparing the probes into the Saradha and Rose Valley scams, he said it was easier to proceed with the latter as all documents were available and there were practically no missing links.
Asked about the alleged involvement of a renowned actress in the scam, he said no evidence against her have surfaced so far.
PTI inputs
