CBI Vs WB govt: CBI to move SC

The CBI is likely to approach the Supreme Court on Monday contending that the state police was not cooperating in its probe initiated on directions by the top court on May 9, 2014, into the Saradha chit fund scam and other several other Ponzi schemes.

Following unprecedented confrontation seen in Kolkata after the CBI sleuths tried to question Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar, the agency decided to approach the top court to seek further directions.

Notably, though the apex court handed over the investigation into the Ponzi scheme scam to the CBI in 2014, it had subsequently refused to monitor the probe. Subsequently, the West Bengal had withdrawn the sanction from the CBI.

In its judgement directing the CBI probe due to the big scale of the scam, the court had said, "Needless to say that the
state police agencies currently investigating the cases shall provide the fullest cooperation to the CBI including
assistance in terms of men and material to enable the latter to conduct and complete the investigation expeditiously."

The court had noted that the initial probe revealed the involvement of political persons in the chit-fund scam that hit the people in West Bengal, Odisha and Assam as lakhs of people were duped through several Ponzi schemes.

“Investigation by the state police in a scam that involves thousands of crores collected from the public allegedly because of the patronage of people occupying high positions in the system will hardly carry conviction especially when even the regulators who were expected to prevent or check such a scam appear to have turned a blind eye to what was going on,” the two-judge bench had said.