Saradha case: ED attaches 100cr assets

BJD man’s bail plea denied The Orissa high court on Monday rejected the anticipatory bail plea of former government chief whip and BJD MLA Pravat Tripathy. The court had completed its hearing on Mr Tripathy’s anticipatory bail plea on October 16.

In a major move in the multi- crore Saradha chit fund scam, the Enforcement Directorate attached properties worth ` 100 crores of the embattled company at Bishnupur in South 24 Parganas on Monday.

This was perhaps the biggest amount of property attachment by the finance ministry’s agency on a single day in its probe. In the morning an ED team led by its assistant director Manoj Kumar raided Saradha Gardens, a residential project with a resort spread on around 166 acres of land owned by Saradha Realty off Diamond Harbour Road. Land and land reforms department officials of the state government accompanied them.

A part of the properties was registered in Saradha owner Sudipta Sen’s name, but the major portion was “Benami” due to the Land Ceiling Act’s restriction on their transfer in his name, sources revealed.

The ED officers attached 18 cars, including two ambulances lying stationary inside, and 36 bighas of land where the construction of the hous- ing project has got underway.

The attached land includes 28 bighas in Bagi Mouza and eight bighas in Bhasha- I Mouza, sources added. The two Mouzas have 41 plots and a resort.

Construction of apartments were completed in 37 of them while four have been left empty, sources disclosed.

A large notice in yellow of the attachment by the ED has been pasted there.

The ED also questioned some buyers about the price of the plots they purchased and how they got the ownership of their plots and later visited the block land and land reforms office.