Tripura set to handover 74 chit-fund cases to CBI

A CORRESPONDENT

Agartala, April 27: The prospect of abolition of the Special investigation Team (SIT) that is currently investigating 74 chit-fund cases almost became certain as the Tripura government is all set to hand over the cases to the CBI.

The CBI has already submitted a prayer before the Tripura High Court, seeking authority to investigate 11 of the 74 cases. The State government, however, has decided to give ‘no objection’ to the proposal. In addition, the State government has decided to handover the remaining 63 cases to the CBI for proper investigation.

The CBI interrogation of the two former ministers has evoked much interest among the political and administrative circle in the State.

The CBI has recently interrogated former Finance minister under the Left Front government Badal Choudhury and Social Welfare minister Bijita Nath.

An official press release issued by the Home department of Tripura stated that “As per order dated 19.03. 2016 & 09.04.2016 passed by the High Court of Tripura in WP (Crl) No.03 of 2014, a special Investigation Team was constituted by the State government for investigation of cases related to Non Banking Financial Companies (NBFC) in the State of Tripura. The SIT took 74 cases for investigation. The CBI prayed before the High Court of Tripura in WP (Crl) No.03 of 2014 to allow it to investigate 11 cases being investigated by SIT. Now, the State government has decided to give ‘No Objection’ to the CBI plea for the investigation of the said 11 cases. Further, State government has decided to handover the remaining 63 NBFC cases out of total 74 cases that were investigated by SIT to CBI for further investigation. Accordingly a proposal has already been sent to Government of India, Department of Personnel and Training on 19.04.2018 requesting for investigation by CBI in respect of 63 number of NBFC cases’.

The BJP has been demanding a CBI inquiry into all the chit-fund cases.

Earlier, the Left Front government had sent 37 cases to the CBI but they took only 5 cases. The remaining cases were turned down mainly due to the involvement of very less amount of money.

Now, the CBI has shown interest to investigate 11 cases that are considered to be significant.