By IANS,
Kolkata : Chit fund-aided Saradha Group promoter Sudipta Sen’s close aide Debjani Mukherjee Friday claimed she never had any relationship with him other than being a “trustworthy employee”, and said she was sacked for raising her voice against the company’s fund collection method.
“I never had any relation with Mr. Sudipta Sen other than being a sincere trustworthy employee, and I never tried to override or cross my limits. Nor did I have any intention to do so,” said Mukherjee, now in police custody along with Sen.
In a statement here, She said: “I had never shared any room with Sudipta Sen, but to my utmost bad luck, people nowadays are gossiping against my chastity.”
Mukherjee had, in January 2008, joined the Saradha group’s tours and travel section in Guwahati as a joint executive at a salary of Rs.15,000. In July the same year, she was elevated to the post of director of the company.
Mukherjee claimed she got the boot when she opposed the questionable means adopted by Sen in his business dealings.
“When I found my boss started making business in a different way, which is absolutely against my principles, I started raising my voice against my boss and he, not considering my dedication towards the company, sacked me from the post of director,” she said in the statement released through her counsel Anirban Guha Thakurta.
Mukherjee said she was appointed as director to 40 companies under the Saradha Group, but currently held the coveted position in only five media companies.
“I have been the director of the five media companies till date, as without proper scrutiny it is impossible to be a director of a media house. And if one has to replace me, one should go through the same process which requires lot of procedural complications,” her statement said.
Mukherjee, who was nabbed from Sonmarg in Jammu and Kashmir April 23 along with Sen and another company official after the Group went bust, said her only fault was that she stood by her boss in his difficult time unlike her other colleagues.
“Though I was not given salary from nearly the end of 2012, I tried to help him or at least stand beside him,” her statement said.
Mukherjee also said she was just an employee of the firm and her job was to “work and get the salary”.
She declined having Rs.30 crore in her bank account.
Sen, the suspected mastermind in the biggest financial scam to rock West Bengal, was arrested after the Group’s offices downed shutters, unable to repay lakhs of depositors – mostly from rural areas and small towns – who had parkedtheir hard-earned money lured by the huge interest rates promised by the company.
The collapse of the group has already resulted in several agents, depositors of Saradha and similar chit fund companies committing suicide, while there are allegations of a small ponzi firm-owner being murdered.