Flat selling case: Bengali actress Ruplekha Mitra seeks more time to appear before ED

Kolkata, Sep 9

Bengali actress Ruplekha Mitra, who was summoned by Enforcement Directorate (ED) for questioning in relation to her associations as a director with a shady financial entity, on Saturday sought more time from the central agency to appear before it.

The ED, in its notice to Mitra, had asked her to be present at the agency's Salt Lake office by 11 a.m. on September 13 for questioning about her association as a director with 7 Sense Infrastructure Private Limited, which has been accused of duping senior citizens of crores of rupees promising them residential flats.

However, on Saturday, the actress herself informed media persons that she had written to ED seeking some more time on grounds that she needs some time to accumulate relevant documents and papers since quite some time from now she had resigned as the director of the said entity.

However, at the same time, Mitra said that she has no intention to doge the central agency summons and once she accumulates all the relevant documents and papers in the matter, she will personally appear at the ED office.

She has also claimed that her post was that of a "sitting -director" with absolutely no cheque-signing authority.

While Mitra, has made her stand clear on the matter, confusion prevailed whether actress-turned-politician and Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member from Basirhat constituency in North 24 Parganas Nusrat Jahan, who was also a director of the same entity, would appear at the ED office. Besides Mitra and Jahan, a third director of the entity Rakesh Singh has also been summoned by ED.

The ED has already filed an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in the matter. As per the complaint, the said corporate entity collected several crores of rupees from investors promising them residential flats at reasonable rates within four years. However, as per the complaint, though they had not received those residential flats, the directors of the said entity including Jahan used that money to construct their own flats.

A couple of days after the matter surfaced in the media in the beginning of August, Jahan told the media that she resigned from the corporate entity in March 2017. She also claimed that she took a loan of around Rs 1.16 crore from the said corporate entity and repaid it along with interest amounting to over Rs 1.40 crore in March 2017 itself.