According to a report by Dainik Jagran, three major businessmen from Siliguri, namely Kishan Aggarwal, Manish Aggarwal and Dinesh Aggarwal, have been sent a notice from the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Sikkim department pertaining to the alleged multi-billion dollar MCX scandal involving Sikkimese residents. There hasn’t been any official statement from the ED, but names of Kishan Aggarwal, Manish Aggarwal and Dinesh Aggarwal from Siliguri have come into the headlines. Jagran’s report also said that one businessman suffered a heart attack while the healths of the other two have deteriorated, after they received the ED’s notice.
The ED reportedly began the probe into the issue after a report from the MCX and a story by the BusinessLine (The Hindu) unveiled the numbers of the churn of $6 billion (46,000 crores) in February of this year by traders from the state of Sikkim, the report also revealed the exponential growth of the number of traders in the state, which was reported to have climbed to 2200 traders. Apart from the evident issue of tax evasion due to the tax exemption that the state of Sikkim enjoys, the privilege that has been scrutinised to have been abused by businessmen from outside the state by using proxy traders from Sikkim, the ED is also probing into possible money laundering as it has come to light that t many brokers from West Bengal, have used this facility and have done huge trades on MCX, possibly laundering black money and turning into it into white.
BJP, Sikkim had demanded CBI to be invited into Sikkim to investigate this matter and had also lodged an FIR for the same, on which CM PS Tamang had previously said “I welcome the step by BJP, Sikkim, which they took pertaining to Sikkim’s wellbeing and in the interest of the state, but the state government had already taken the necessary steps involving the state vigilance that is in correspondence with the necessary agencies to be involved,” the CM said and had added, “I have also already held talks with the Central government regarding this issue.”