BHUBANESWAR: In a relief for Trinamool Congress president and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the Odisha High Court on Friday granted bail to veteran TMC MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay in the Rose Valley Group chit fund scam. The court asked the MP to surrender his passport and submit a Rs 25-lakh bank guarantee at the special CBI court in Bhubaneswar.
The High Court approved conditional bail of Mr Sudip Bandyopadhyay after two sureties of Rs 50,000 each were produced in the court. Elaborating on the dev-elopment, Mr Sudip’s counsel Mr Sidharth Das said, “While granting the bail, the court also asked the TMC MP to cooperate with the CBI during the probe and be present at the lower court during hearings.”
During the hearing, counsel Mr Das argued that the bail plea should be considered by the High Court as Mr Sudip Bandyopadhyay was an elderly person and keeping unwell these days. “Besides, Mr Sudip Bandyopadhyay is in no way involved in any direct transactions with Rose Valley. Neither he was a director in the company nor was into its businesses,” Mr Das told the court.
The TMC MP is currently lodged in Jharpada Special Jail, Bhubaneswar, after his arrest by the CBI in connection with the multi-crore chit fund scam on January 3 this year. Mr Sudip Bandyopadhyay is a four-time Lok Sabha member and was minister of state for health and family welfare in former PM Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet between 2011 and 2012.
Another TMC MP, Tapas Paul, who was also arrested in the same chit fund scam, is currently lodged in Jharpada jail here. Rose Valley Group allegedly defrauded inve-stors from across the country of over Rs 17,000 crore. On April 18, Ms Mamata Banerjee had flown to Bhubaneswar to meet the two MPs while they were undergoing treatment at a private hospital here.
