New Delhi, May 11
The CBI will soon form a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the Saradha chit fund scam in which investors in West Bengal, Odisha and Assam were allegedly duped of Rs 10,000 crore, besides examining the role of market regulators such as SEBI and RBI.

"We will form the SIT as soon as the legalities in the case are finalised," CBI Director Ranjit Sinha said here today. The Supreme Court ordered a CBI probe on Friday on a PIL and asked the three state police forces to cooperate with the CBI investigation.

The CBI will also look into the role of regulators such as SEBI, authorities under the Companies Act and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as directed by the apex court.

The court, in its order, had pointed out that there was yet another aspect that related to the role of the regulatory authorities.

"Investigations conducted so far put a question mark on the role of regulatory authorities such as SEBI, Registrar of Companies and officials of the RBI within whose respective jurisdictions and areas of operation the scam not only took birth but flourished unhindered," a bench headed by Justice TS Thakur said in its order.

The CBI will be collecting documents from all state governments pertaining to the scam that has been termed by the Supreme Court as a "sordid affair".

"Investigations by the state police in a scam that involves thousands of crores collected from the public allegedly because of the patronage of people occupying high positions in the system will hardly carry conviction, especially when even the regulators who were expected to prevent or check such a scam appear to have turned a blind eye to what was going on," the apex court had said.

Enforcement Directorate is also looking into money laundering violation by the Saradha Group.

The court said the CBI would probe against Saradha and 44 other companies in Odisha which are allegedly involved in the scam. Saradha Group's chief Sudipta Sen was arrested by the West Bengal police in Kashmir. Kunal Kumar Ghosh, a Trinamool Congress MP, was also arrested on November 23, 2013, in connection with the scam.

Ghosh was the media CEO of Saradha Group of Companies. — PTI