Bhubaneswar: Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay was on Wednesday remanded in six days of CBI custody by a special court in the Rose Valley chit fund scam case.
Following the court order, his party activists staged a demonstration before CBI's Odisha headquarters in the city.
The TMC MP's lawyer Rajiv Majumdar and others were present in the Chief Judicial Magistrate's court when judge P K Mishra remanded Bandyopadhyay for six days against CBI's appeal for a 12-day remand.
The CBI lawyer argued in the court that the agency should be given maximum time to interrogate the MP as he was not actively cooperating with the investigation.
The MP's petition for bail was also rejected by the court even as his lawyer pleaded that his client was unwell.
"I am innocent. I have no involvement in the scam. I have placed my point of view before the court and will again appeal the court to consider my point of argument," Bandyopadhyay told reporters after appearing in the court.
He was produced at the CBI-designated special court amid tight security after his medical examination at the Capital Hospital.
Bandyopadhyay, also the TMC Parliamentary Party leader in the Lok Sabha, was the second party MP after Tapas Pal to be arrested by the CBI in a span of five days.
Both Pal and Bandyopadhyay were arrested on charges of having links with the Rose Valley Group that allegedly duped investors of Rs 17,000 crore in different states including Odisha and West Bengal.
The CBI in its charge sheet against the Ponzi company in January last year mentioned that investors from Odisha alone had deposited Rs 450 crore with the Rose Valley Group.
While Tapas Pal was a director of Rose Valley Group in 2010, Bandyopadhyay has been accused of having strong links with the Group's chairman Goutam Kundu, now in jail, CBI sources said.
Sources also said the CBI was planning to interrogate both Bandyopadhyay and Pal together as they have been arrested on the charge of their involvement with the scam.
TMC activists, many from West Bengal, along with TMC Odisha state president Arya Kumar Gyanendra, staged a demonstration before the investigating agency's office while both Bandyopadhyay and Pal were inside the CBI office.
"CBI has arrested Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Tapas Pal on political consideration. We will certainly oppose the action. The state unit of the TMC is planning a massive protest rally in Bhubaneswar on January 10," Gyanendra told PTI.
A two-member delegation of the TMC also met senior CBI officials here and lodged protest against the arrest of Bandyopadhyay and Pal.
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