Saradha chitfund: Sudipta Sen sent to 14-day police remand

Sudipta Sen, the main accused in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam, and his two other accomplices were today remanded in 14-day police custody by a court, even as police claimed that the company's director Debjani Mukherjee played a key role in decision-making.

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Sen, the group's chairman, along with Mukherjee and Arvind Singh Chouhan, who looked after the company's interests in Jharkhand, were produced before Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate A H M Rahman court in Bidhannagar. The three were charged under IPC sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating) and 506 (criminal intimidation).

The court said that Sen could have a lawyer during interrogation if he desired and also asked the Bidhannagar police commisionerate to provide details of pending cases in their jurisdiction against the trio within a week. Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner of Bidhannagar police Arnab Ghosh said that Mukherjee was a key decision-maker.

"We have come to know that Debjani had played a role in the decision-making process of Saradha," he said. Asked why the other Saradha directors were not arrested, Ghosh said all directors were not part of the decision-making process and cited the example of Hemant Pradhan who was actually a cook and had no idea that he had been made a director. Outside the court, placard-waving Youth Congress and BJP workers held demonstrations demanding that Sen be punished for duping thousands of investors and action against TMC MPs whose names figured in the scam.