CBI team to evaluate Mamata Banerjee's paintings

KOLKATA: After seizing at least two dozen paintings by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) now looks into bring in a team of evaluators to determine the actual price of these.

The paintings were bought by some businessmen who ran various ponzi schemes. The evaluators will fix the valuation for all paintings and submit a report to central agencies. The report consisting of the market valuation will be then compared with the prices that the fraudulent companies paid to the Trinamool Congress for these paintings.

According to sources in the CBI ranks, the evaluation report would be submitted to the court along with the prices at which the paintings were sold. The evaluation report is admissible to the court under the Evidence Act, said a senior official of the agency. Currently, the CBI has around 25 of Mamata’s paintings seized from various ‘chit fund’ owners.


Sources further said the requisition for a team of expert evaluators has been sent to the CBI headquarters and the team will be reaching soon. According to the investigators, the money, which Trinamol received from the sale of paintings, is the investors’ money and the proceeds of crime as well. CBI on Friday filed its seventh supplementary charge sheet in Saradha scam case.

Nalini Chidambaram, a senior advocate and wife of former Union minister P Chidambaram has been named in the charge sheet for entering into a criminal conspiracy with Saradha chief Sudipta Sen and for allegedly taking Rs 1.4 crore from Saradha group of companies during 2010-12. According to the charge sheet, the Saradha group of companies had illegally raised funds to the tune of Rs 2,500 crore and the accused had failed to repay the investors to the tune of Rs 1,900 crore.