AGARTALA / NEW DELHI, July 11 (TIWN): CBI’s ‘go-slow’ policy on Tripura’s Rs 1172 crores Chit-Fund scams by Rose Valley, Sarada, Basil, Waris kind of Chit fund companies raise the important question – why CBI going slow on Manik Sarkar’s CPI-M empire whereas CBI fast tracked Bengal’s chit fund scams, even locked Sports Minister Madan Mitra behind bars since 2 years ? Is Tripura is being treated ‘specially’ by CBI to benefit Manik Sarkar just because Northeast Zone CBI head Rajib Singh( also a Tripura cadre IPS officer) is a close confidante of Tripura CM ? Rajib Singh worked as IG of Tripura Police during his earlier stint at Tripura. CBI, Orissa, Bengal Govtsfiled over 900 cases against illegal non-banking financial entities for cheating people under various false promises of higher returns while over 1500 people have been arrested so far. However Tripura Govt yet to declare any such claims as CPI-M Govt opted to ‘close eyes’ for Chit Fund related scams in Tripura due to heavy involvements of CPI-M party cadres and leaders like Minister Bijita Nath, Gautam Das etc. In 2016,TripuraGovt also failed to submit ATR (action taken report) to Central Govt on various Chit Fund lootings. West Bengal-based Rose Valley group cheated investors of Rs 17,000 crore, the CBI has confirmed, making the chit-fund scam seven times bigger than the Saradha scandal.

 That incident generated a lot of political heat in the Bengal, Assam and Tripura.

“In popular perception, the Saradha Group has been the biggest culprit that duped the public of its hard-earned money, but it was actually the RV (Rose Valley) group in India’s Northeast and eastern states,” a source familiar with the investigation said.

CBI court in Bubaneshwar sent Shibamoy Dutta, Managing Director (MD) of Rose Valley group and Director Ashok Kumar Saha ( also Tripura operations head), arrested by the CBI in connection with the multi-thousand crore Odisha chit fund scam, to judicial custody.

The group's chairman GautamKundu is already behind bars arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act for mobilising public money without proper sanction of the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

Saradha chairman Sudipta Ghosh’s alleged admission of cheating in April 2013 had blown the lid off these scams. Rose valley group chairman GautamKundu was arrested last year on charges of money laundering.

The RV group made a modest start in the hospitality sector in Bengal in the late 1990s. It later expanded to real estate, film and media sectors and was also as a corporate agent of a state-owned insurer.

In Sept 205, A division bench of Justice T.S.Thakur and Justice C. Nagappa remarked that there "should be a CBI probe against CBI for not promoting staffers inside CBI"."You (CBI) have created the present situation because of your own apathy towards the problem on which you keep harping upon," it said adding that the agency, which does not promote its own people, keeps alleging non-cooperation by the state police.The court had earlier sought response from the Central Bureau of Investigation CBI) on several counts relating to its staff strength - both of its own and those coming from the states on deputation - as it was told that it had 754 vacancies as its staff strength and particularly how the investigators were unmatched to the undertaking of probing the Saradha and non-Saradha chit fund scam cases. Asking the CBI to fill up the vacancies, the court said: "You have been telling Kolkata people (to provide it with investigators to probe chit fund scam). Tell us, what have you done to bring 317 persons (total vacancies under deputation quota) into your own fold."

So far CBI even failed to engage enough personnel for investigating multi-crore Chit Fund scams in Tripura, which caused enormous damage as lot of evidences are destroyed by scamsters.

Tripura CM’s penchant for corrupt IAS, IPS officials went to such extreme that nationally known corrupt Telugu IAS, IPS officials like GSG Ayyangar, K.Nagraj donning prime posts of Principal Secretary, DGP (Director General of Police) in ‘golden’ Tripura.