Ponzi case: Derek O’Brien gets CBI notice

Kolkata: In another setback to the Mamata Banerjee government, Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien has been summoned by the CBI for questionning in the Saradha chit fund scam. He has been asked to appear at the CBI office in Salt Lake in the first week of August, sources said.

A senior CBI official said that Mr O’Brien has been called to join the probe and provide clarifications into certain transactions recorded in the bank accounts of Trinamul mouthpiece: Jago Bangla of which he is also the publisher.

It is not clear whether Mr O’Brien will appear before the CBI. Mr O’Brien has been critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, often alleging that the Central government has been playing politics with Saradha chit fund scam to tarnish the TMC  chief’s image.

But this is not the first time the chief minister's close aide came under the CBI's radar. In February this year he was called by the same agency to face questionning with some documents detailing financial transactions in the respective accounts, sources claimed.

He had then informed the CBI that he was occupied with the session in the Parliament, sources revealed. The CBI's second notice to Mr O'Brien came close on the heels of the Enforcement Directorate's summons to six persons including Trinamul Lok Sabha MP Shatabdi Roy and former RS member Kunal Ghosh, for their questioning in the chit fund scam.