CPI(M) today sharply criticised the Trinamool Congress government's move to set up a relief fund to compensate investors hit by the collapse of Saradha Group which was engaged in a ponzi scheme.
Party leader and finance minister during the Left Front regime, Asim Dasgupta said it was surprising to hear that instead of paying off the investors by auctioning the confiscated assets of the chitfund group, the state government has sought to create a fund by imposing taxes on the public.
SEBI in its letter dated April 23, 2010, had asked a group firm Saradha Realty to stop collecting money from the public and repay the depositors within three months, he told newsmen here.
Lambasting the government, Dasgupta said it chose a 'convoluted method' to compensate the investors by taxing the public and demanded that the probe into the scam be jointly carried out by SEBI, RBI and SFIO.
Since people of more than one state were duped by the Saradha group's ponzi scheme, CBI should also be roped in in the probe, Dasgupta said and sought the arrest of political leaders irrespective of parties involved the scam.
