Rose Valley chief sent to judicial custody

A court here on Tuesday rejected Rose Valley Group chairman Gautam Kundu's bail plea and sent him to 10 days judicial custody.

Arrested March 25 by Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act for mobilising public money without proper sanction of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, he was presented before a court on the expiry of his custody with the ED.

Rejecting Kundu's bail plea, the court sent him to judicial custody till April 9.

Scores of Rose Valley employees staged demonstrations outside court premises seeking Kundu's release.

Kundu's judicial custody comes a day after a Calcutta High Court bench directed the ED to complete its investigation in the matter in three months.

Upholding the agency's action of freezing bank accounts of the group, a division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said the investigation into the case must be completed within the next three months and asked the agency to submit a report of its finding to the court.

The Corporate Affairs Ministry in 2013 had named Rose Valley as one of the 73 companies involved in ponzi schemes in Bengal.

Having cast its net across the states of Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Odisha, Jharkhand and Maharashtra among others, the company is alleged to have raised close to Rs.15,000 crore.

Found guilty of running "collective investment scheme" without necessary approvals, the SEBI in June 2014 had ordered the company to refund the money to the investors and barred it barred from accessing the securities market.