Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday arrested Sudip Bandopadhyay, the senior Trinamool Congress MP and the parliamentary party leader in Lok Sabha, in connection with the Rose Valley chit fund scam after questioning him at the agency’s Kolkata office.
He is the second Trinamool MP to be held in the case after Tapas Pal. His arrest has come as a big blow to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Around 10.55 am, Bandopadhyay appeared before the special investigation team (SIT) of the CBI at CGO Complex in Salt Lake, responding to the summons to face questioning. "I am going to know the allegations against me from them," he had then claimed.
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The SIT officers started questioning him from 11 am about his association with Rose Valley Group and its owner Goutam Kundu.
An SP rank officer led the interrogation that lasted for more than four hours. The investigating officer in the case, B Ghosal, also attended the session. He was earlier in Bhubaneswar for the interrogation of Pal.
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While probing the scam for the last one and a half years, the CBI found that Bandopadhyay took favours from Rose Valley, such as foreign trips and receipt of hefty amount of money, sources said. The sources added that in exchange, the Trinamool MP helped Kundu to run his business smoothly.
Bandopadhyay, however, could not give satisfactory replies when he was asked about the favours, leading to his arrest, sources said.
