CBI grills former Tripura minister on chit fund scam

The Central Bureau of Investigation today questioned former Tripura minister Bijita Nath in connection with the Rose Valley chit fund scam.

Nath was the social welfare minister in the previous Manik Sarkar government in the state.

"They questioned me on the Rose Valley issue. This time they recorded my statement, stating that earlier they had questioned me but did not record the statement," she told PTI.

Nath was grilled by the CBI in connection with the scam in June last year.

A CBI sleuth questioned her at her official residence at the MLA hostel here.

Her lawyer Horibal Debnath, who was present in the MLA hostel during the questioning, told reporters that she was questioned as a witness and not as an accused.

Tripura Speaker Rebati Mohan Das yesterday said the CBI had informed him that it would quiz Nath and another senior CPI(M) MLA s Badal Choudhury, in connection with the multi-crore Rose Valley chit fund scam.

Choudhury, the former finance minister, would be questioned tomorrow, official sources said.

In the run up to the Assembly polls held in February, the BJP-Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) alliance had announced to hand over the investigation into the Rose Valley scam to the CBI immediately after coming to power.

Assets of Rose Valley in 20 locations across Tripura were attached by the state government in 2016.

Thirty-seven cases related to the chit fund companies were forwarded to the central investigating agency in 2013 by the Tripura government, but the CBI is investigating only five of them.