ED moves court seeking to seize Saradha property

KOLKATA: In a move that can completely derail the Shyamal Sen Commission's efforts to auction off seized Saradha property, the Enforcement Directorate has moved Calcutta high court claiming only the central agency has the right to seize and dispose property under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, for which a case has already been registered against Sudipta Sen and Debjani Mukherjee.
The PMLA, 2002, empowers ED to seize the "proceeds of crime" which is vested with the Centre
till it is disposed off by any special administrators. The Calcutta high court has sought a reply from the state and will next hear the matter on January 13, 2014.
The ED petition filed last week came up for hearing before a Calcutta high court division bench of justices Ashim Banerjee and Debangshu Basak. "The ED petition argued on two aspects, one it is getting no help from the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to ascertain the quantum of Saradha-related assets seized. The second part related to stressing its powers under the PMLA Act, 2002 which gives it powers to confiscate and dispose such property or asset," said Bhaskar Bandopadhyay, ED's counsel. Harping on this, another ED counsel Somnath Sen said, "We argued that the state's intent to dispose the Saradha properties would violate a statute passed by an Act of the Parliament. The legal quandary is more, for the ED has already registered a case under PMLA, 2002, and is already probing the matter."
Earlier, the Shyamal Sen Commission armed with a Calcutta high court July 19 order - and also according to the terms of reference which led to its formation - had obtained a list of seized Saradha properties from the SIT. According to sources, this related to 208 land parcels, 64 cars and around Rs 37 crore in cash. The commission has already firmed up its intent to auction 44 of these cars (the rest 20 are mortgaged to various banks)
and around seven land parcels, which prima facie are free of litigation or claims. These proceeds, according to the commission, would be paid back to the Saradha depositors. The commission has already provided a relief to 1.04 lakh Saradha depositors, but this is only from the interim grants provided to it by the state exchequer.
Making it a tad uncomfortable for the Mamata Banerjee
government, senior lawyer Bikash Bhattacharya - who apart from Laxmi Gupta and Pronab Dutta who were asked by the HC to go through the six SIT reports filed since July 19 - told the court that these reports (the first submitted on June 28 and the last submitted on November 31) wobble short of unearthing the scam. "These relate to around 381 FIRs of which 246 cases chargesheets were submitted. But this relates to specific depositors losing money and under less stringent IPC sections. Nothing can be proved by it. It also details the seizures but these are hardly of any significance compared to the thousand-odd crores siphoned off," Bhattacharya said.
This ironically,lent weight to the ED case that it intends to unravel the extent of crime which is not just confined to Bengal. ED counsel Sen argues, "People in Assam, Tripura, Jharkhand and Odisha have also lost money after Saradha went bust. The commission can only provide relief to the depositors in West Bengal."
By this, the claims of others are being denied. It is therefore imperative that the ED is given the right to seize and dispose properties. Under PMLA, 2002, properties confiscated under CrPC (as in this case) can be taken over by the ED under the section 5 of PMLA, 2002.
The court then posted the matter for hearing on January 13.
Both Sen and Trinamool MP Kunal Ghosh, meanwhile, were produced in Howrah and Chandannagore courts respectively to face charges in separate cases. While Sen was remanded in 14 days judicial custody, Ghosh got four days police custody.