Kolkata, Feb 28 (IANS) Enforcement Directorate (ED), on Friday, informed that a fresh disbursal of Rs 2.29 crore as refund to 3,652 deposits in the Ponzi scheme of West Bengal-based chit fund entity Rose Valley Group has been completed in the last and fifth phase by the asset disposal committee headed by the Justice Dilip Kumar Seth (retired) and comprising officials of ED.
With this fresh disbursal, the total refund to as many as 32,319 depositors in Rose Valley schemes has touched Rs 21.98 crore, the ED said on Friday.
As per the ED statement, the said asset disposal committee played a crucial role in facilitating the attachment, possession, and disbursement of assets of the Rose Valley Group thereby smoothening and expediting the restitution of properties to the thousands of victims of the states of West Bengal, Odisha and Assam, among others.
“ED is actively assisting the ADC in conducting survey and valuation of confirmed attached properties and facilitating expedited monetisation of assets for disbursal to the investors/victims of Rose Valley group of companies,” the central agency statement read.
The agency had also claimed that further restitution process is expected to continue over the coming months as more claims are scrutinised and validated by the ADC.
It also claimed that the agency officials have successfully attached movable properties worth Rs 494 crore and immovable properties valued at Rs 1,069 crore, spread across West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, and Tripura, with West Bengal alone accounting for Rs 1,184 Crore in attached assets.
The ED has made this announcement just a day after the Calcutta High Court ordered the West Bengal government to submit a detailed report on the pending cases against Sudipta Sen, the founder-chairman of another ill-reputed chit fund entity, the Saradha Group.
In 2012, the entire West Bengal was rocked following the busting of chit-fund rackets operating from the state. The most talked about cases in the matter were those related to the Saradha Group and Rose Valley Group, because of the involvement of several heavyweight political personalities mainly from the ruling Trinamool Congress.
The main charges in such cases were about illegally collecting public deposits under different multi-level marketing schemes against promises of abnormal returns and vanishing at the time of paying those returns.
Most of these chit fund entities had their headquarters in West Bengal and they made such collections through a multi-level agents’ network from remote villages in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odessa, Punjab, and Haryana.
The operators have offices and agents’ networks scattered in different important cities in these states.
–IANS
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