In times of crisis of confidence in public figures, politicans and VIPs, film actor and member of parliament Mithun Chakraborty comes as a breath of fresh air.

On Tuesday, the Rajya Sabha member from Trinamool Congress surrendered to the enforcement directorate Rs 1.2 crore, which he had received from the scam tainted Saradha Group.

“Mithun Chakraborty had taken a professional fees from the Saradha Group for hosting a television show. Today we had come to return the money,” Biman Sarkar, the actor’s counsel said.

Sarkar went to ED office during the day and submitted a demand draft for Rs. 1,19,88,560. Sarkar said that the actor has returned the money voluntarily. Mr. Chakraborty had been questioned by the ED officials twice. The decision was taken after discussions with the agency, he said.

Chakraborty had promised he would deposit the amount of Rs 1.2 crore he had received from Saradha Group so that it may be finally restored to the depositors who were allegedly cheated in the scam.

The agency is satisfied with the said action and the statement recorded by the actor-politician regarding his role in the operations of the group, which has now become defunct in the wake of allegations against it of perpetrating a large-scale chit-fund scam in West Bengal and other states.

Chakraborty had told investigators that he had "no business dealings" with the now-defunct group which was headed by Sudipta Sen and that he would share all personal transaction details with them. Subsequently, he had provided the agency sleuths with a number of DVDs, CDs and scripts that he had got as part of being the brand ambassador of the Saradha group.

He had told investigators that he had no inkling about any sort of scam that was being perpetrated. The actor had submitted all his personal and official records to the agency in this regard.

The probe agency had in June last year questioned the actor in Mumbai after it detected that some money had gone into his account from Saradha business portals.

The agency had registered a criminal case and has already questioned a number of people, including sitting MPs and political leaders, in this regard. The agency has found that a maze of 338 bank accounts and 224 companies were used by the perpetrators of the alleged ponzi scam which duped investors in various states including West Bengal, Odisha and Assam.