Arrested Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member Sudip Bandopadhaya was on Thursday denied bail by a Central Bureau of Investigation court in Bhubaneswar and sent to jail.
He was produced in the court of Special Chief Judicial Magistrate P K Mishra after the completion of his 10-day CBI remand in two phases.
The judge rejected his bail petition and posted the next hearing of the case to January 25.
The MP’s advocate sought bail pleading that his client has all along cooperated with the investigating agency. The counsel also claimed that Bandopadhaya was ill.
Bandopadhaya claimed he was innocent and had no involvement in the scam.
“The Centre and the CBI are trying to malign me because I raised demonetisation issue in Parliament,” Bandyopadhyay told reporters.
He was arrested in Kolkata on January 3 on charges of alleged link with Rose Valley Group chief Goutam Kundu, now in jail, and brought to Bhubaneswar next day. He has been in the CBI custody since then.
Rose Valley Group has been accused of duping investors of Rs 17,000 crore in different states including Odisha and West Bengal.
The CBI in its charge sheet against the ponzi scheme company in January last year had mentioned that the investors from Odisha alone had deposited Rs 450 crore with the Rose Valley Group.
Another TMC MP Tapas Pal has been lodged at a special jail at Jharpada in the same scam.
Photograph: ANI
