CBI to scan bank details of Mohun Bagan, East Bengal

Club officials say they have not received any such notice

Within days of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) freezing the primary accounts of leading Kolkata football clubs Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, the CBI has told the club officials to present details of all bank transactions by October 9. 

According to sources, the CBI on Tuesday instructed Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Bhawanipore Sporting Club to submit to it all papers pertaining to bank transactions. 

The CBI is expected to go through the transactions and zero in on unaccounted-for funds the clubs might have received from the Saradha Group. All these clubs, along with Kalighat Sporting Club, were sponsored by the Saradha Group since 2010 till it went bust in a multi-crore scam in 2013.

Even as crisis deepens for the three football clubs, officials claimed that they were yet to receive any notice from the central probe agency. 

East Bengal secretary Kalyan Majumdar said since their office was closed on Tuesday on account of Lakshmi Puja, they were yet to receive any notice. “I don’t know if any notice has come. We had earlier visited both the ED and the SFIO. If called by the CBI, we will do whatever necessary and meet them with the relevant documents,” he said.

Echoing similar feelings, Mohun Bagan’s finance secretary Debasish Dutta said, “We haven’t received any letter yet. We will cooperate, just like we did when called by the ED and the SFIO. We are ready to submit whatever documents the CBI asks for.” 

He added that the club has already submitted a letter of to the ED appealing for unfreezing of the club's accounts.“We are scheduled to participate in the Sikkim Governor’s Gold Cup at Gangtok on October 10. If the ED unfreezes our accounts by then, we will participate,” he said. Bishnu Chakraborty of Bhawanipore Sporting Club told reporters: “Whatever we are getting to know is from the media. We heard that the ED will call us, but no call has come so far.

 Our accounts are also operational. We won’t know what to do till we get any notice. If any government agency calls us, we will definitely cooperate.”