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HomePoliticsMamata’s ex-minister says Saradha is country’s worst scam, bats for Rakesh Asthana...

Mamata’s ex-minister says Saradha is country’s worst scam, bats for Rakesh Asthana in new book

Former additional CBI director Upen Biswas, widely known for his probe into the fodder scam, has written that Saradha scam is a ‘monumental fraud that overshadows all scams of India’. 

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Kolkata: A former member of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet has written that the Saradha chit fund scam is the country’s worst corruption scandal. 

In a book titled Dhamma Adhamma that is yet to be published, 79-year-old Upen Biswas, also a former IPS officer who has served as the additional CBI director, has written that the Ponzi scheme was a “monumental fraud, which overshadows all other scams of India”. 

The Saradha scam, which came to light in 2013 was the first major corruption scandal to dog the Mamata Banerjee government. Several senior Trinamool MPs, ministers and leaders have been implicated in the case while at least two party MPs — Sudip Banerjee and Tapas Pal — and a minister, Madan Mitra, were arrested by the CBI in connection with the scam. 

Some of the accused TMC leaders such as Mukul Roy, Suvendu Adhikari and Sovan Chatterjee have since switched over to the BJP.

In an exclusive interview with ThePrint, Biswas, credited for his investigation into the fodder scam that has landed former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav in jail, said his book delves on the Saradha scam and other governance and civil service issues. 

He also said that he has addressed the CBI controversy involving the agency’s then director Alok Verma and then special director Rakesh Asthana.  

Describing Asthana, currently serving as the director general of the BSF, as his “disciple”, Biswas said the officer was “maliciously and dishonestly prevented from becoming the CBI director”. 

Biswas added that Asthana was a member of his team that probed the fodder scam almost two decades ago. 

The veteran IPS officer, who retired from service in 2002, joined politics and the Trinamool Congress in 2011. In the first Mamata term, Biswas was the Backward Class Welfare minister but he lost elections in 2016. 

The chief minister then accommodated him as chairman of West Bengal’s SC, ST and OBC commission, a post equivalent in rank to that of a cabinet minister. 

Biswas, however, told ThePrint that he has communicated to the party that he will not be contesting assembly elections this year.


Also read: Mamata Banerjee & her IPS officers — 9 joined Trinamool in 10 years, 4 were ministers


‘The country’s worst scam’

Biswas told ThePrint that the book, which ThePrint has accessed, has been named after King Ashoka’s Dhamma

A chapter titled ‘Saradha Scam’ addresses the issue. “This is a monumental fraud, which overshadows all other scams of India,” Biswas has written. “Here too, a larger conspiracy was hatched to loot left and right by powerful persons and from poor Sudipta Sen.”

Sen was the CEO and MD of the Saradha firms; he is currently in jail. 

Biswas told ThePrint that he focused on the Saradha scam in the book for a personal reason. 

“Being an investigator of the most complicated fodder scam involving all influential people, I understand the nitty-gritties of probing a financial scam,” he said.

“I focused on Saradha in my book because my name was mentioned in the political speeches by a former Left Front minister, which later reached court. The former minister had said that all Trinamool MLAs, except Upen Biswas, got Rs 25 lakh from Sudipta Sen via Mukul Roy as election expenses. After this statement, Roy filed a defamation suit against him and the matter landed in court. At every hearing, my name was mentioned.”

Biswas added that the former minister never backed down and that later Roy didn’t pursue the defamation case. 

“But I collected all the certified copies of orders and CBI affidavits as documents. After almost seven years of seeing it through, I am disappointed with the CBI investigation,” he said. “The agency came under political pressure and removed efficient and sincere officers. I have elaborated on these issues in the book.” 

Biswas, who has never criticised Mamata Banerjee or the Trinamool Congress publicly, further said that he was not looking to assign blame. 

“I cannot hold the government or the supreme leader of the ruling party responsible because these are still under investigation,” he said.

“But we know that a huge scam took place and it did not happen overnight. The Supreme Court, in its first order directing CBI to take over the case, said that the larger conspiracy should be unearthed. I particularly know and understand this expression — larger conspiracy — because I coined this word during the fodder scam. Larger conspiracy involves influential people, mostly politicians and senior officials.” 

On his association with the Trinamool, the former IPS officer said, “I refused Mamata Banerjee’s offer to join politics many times, but in 2011 she said that she would need me to do some welfare work for tribal and backward classes. I agreed. But, I am not going to contest elections this time.”

‘Incorruptible Rakesh Asthana’ 

Biswas’ book also praises Rakesh Asthana, the former CBI special director against whom at least half a dozen cases were filed in 2018 by his own organisation. 

“Had my disciple, Rakesh Asthana not been taken out of the CBI, the powerful culprits, after a judicial exercise, would have been languishing in jails as convicts,” Biswas has written in the book while referring to the cases filed against Asthana. 

“I feel that serious injustice has been done to my disciple. At least half a dozen false cases were lodged against him just to remove him from the CBI. A serious conspiracy was hatched by the perpetrators of the (Saradha) scam to save their own skin,” Biswas told ThePrint.

“Had he been there in CBI, we would have seen the culprits in jail and as convicts. They would not have been roaming and flaunting around freely.” 

Biswas said he is in touch with Asthana, who visited him in Kolkata two years ago.  

“I am in touch with him. He keeps calling me,” the former officer said. “I have known him for decades. I have seen him growing up as an able IPS officer and good investigator. He is incorruptible.”

“He will probably become the next CBI director,” Biswas added. 

The 79-year-old says he has dedicated two chapters to the Narada sting and the ‘loot of Junglemahal’ but refused to elaborate. 

“The book has gone for print and it will be published soon,” he said. “I can only say that I have also elaborated on how the tribal community in Junglemahal was harassed and cheated by certain sections of society.” 


Also read: Why Owaisi’s a sticking point in Congress-Left plans to ally with this Bengal Muslim cleric


 

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