Calcutta HC grants bail to Saradha chit fund scam accused

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Saturday granted bail to Debjani Mukherjee, an accused in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam, in one of the several criminal cases against her.

A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Arijit Banerjee ordered bail to Mukherjee on furnishing a bond of Rs 2 lakh with two sureties of Rs 1 lakh each, one of whom must be local.

Mukherjee will, however, continue to remain behind bars since she is yet to obtain bail in cases pending against her in other states.

The Saradha group allegedly cheated thousands of depositors, promising abnormally high returns on investments in its illegal schemes.

Moving the bail petition before the high court, the petitioner’s lawyer Jayanta Narayan Chatterjee contended that she was arrested on April 22, 2013, and has been in custody since then.

The CBI, which is investigating the case, stated that such arrest was in connection with some other criminal case and in so far as the present case is concerned, Mukherjee was apprehended on June 14, 2014.

The charge-sheet in the case was filed on October 22, 2014, and the investigation against the accused persons including the petitioner is complete, the court noted.

The bench further noted that the trial in the case has not started yet and the petitioner is in custody for more than seven years.

”It is also pertinent to note that Kunal Kumar Ghosh, a co-accused, in the same case, was granted interim bail by this court on October 5, 2016 which was confirmed by this court on January 6, 2017,” the bench observed while granting bail to Mukherjee in the case.