IANS/Kolkata/Agartala



The Central Bureau of Investigation yesterday raided the Kolkata home of Trinamool Congress actor-MP Tapas Paul and 42 other locations of the Rose Valley Group across India in connection with a multi-billion rupee chit fund scam.
Paul, who represents Krishnanagar in the Lok Sabha, was a former director of the group which has been under the scanner of various central agencies, including market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The raids were conducted in 27 locations of the Rose Valley in West Bengal, seven in Tripura and one location each in Odisha, Assam, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu.
“Apart from offices, searches are being conducted at the residential premises of Rose Valley Group chairman Gautam Kundu, managing director Shibamoy Dutta and then directors of the group, including Abir Kundu, Ramlal Goswami, Ashok Kumar Saha and present Lok Sabha MP Tapas Paul,” said a CBI official.
A team of CBI officials searched Paul’s residence for several hours.
Kundu, who was questioned by the ED on February 3, had said Paul was a director of the group’s films division. Special CBI teams seized many official documents in Tripura during the raids.
A top police officer said on condition of anonymity that the CBI was scrutinising official documents of the company. “They interrogated 12 employees of Rose Valley Group.”
In Kolkata, Shibamoy Dutta said the company would co-operate with the CBI, but assured investors “there is nothing wrong.”
“At a time when some companies have not been able to retain people’s faith and have closed down, we have managed to keep open all our offices and function normally,” Dutta said.
The corporate affairs ministry in 2013 had named Rose Valley as one of the 73 companies involved in ponzi schemes in West Bengal.
Having cast its net across West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Odisha, Jharkhand and Maharashtra among others, the company is alleged to have raised close to Rs15,000 crore.
Found guilty of running “collective investment scheme” without necessary approvals, the SEBI in June 2014 had ordered the company to refund the money to the investors and barred it from accessing the securities market.
The SEBI had also warned the company of attachment and recovery proceedings if it failed to refund the money.
While the ED had attached 2,631 bank accounts of the group involving Rs295 crore in November 2014, its properties were confiscated in Odisha following a court order on February 25.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in December last year had told the Rajya Sabha that the Rose Valley Group of companies had collected an estimated Rs15,000 crore from investors.