Odisha chit fund scam is bigger than Saradha; big fish try to scuttle probe

Bhubaneswar: As CBI peels off, layer by layer, the intricately woven criminal conspiracy to dupe lakhs of gullible people, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Odisha chapter of the chit fund scam is infinitely bigger than was initially thought. And this when the investigation so far has been largely centred on the Artha Tatwa (AT) group, one of the key players in the scam, but by no means the biggest. Considering that there are no less than 44 companies under the purview of the Supreme Court mandated CBI probe, it can be safely said that it would end up as a bigger loot of public money than the Saradha scam in neighbouring West Bengal. Last Monday, the investigating agency got the first big catch in its net when it arrested former Advocate General (AG) Ashok Mohanty for a highly suspicious land deal he had done with AT group chief Pradip Sethy, who appears to have the entire political, administrative and police establishment in the state eating out of his hands for years. [caption id=“attachment_1729641” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PTI[/caption] While Mohanty maintains that he had paid Rs 1, 01, 00, 000 for the house in the upmarket CDA area in the Millennium City of Cuttack, CBI believes it was a ‘gift’ for the ‘legal services’ he had rendered in his capacity as the AG to protect Sethy and his then flourishing business from the long arm of the law. On Wednesday, the special CBI court in Bhubaneswar rejected the bail plea of Mohanty and sent him into judicial custody till September 30 even as the High Court Bar Association appealed to lawyers across the state to protest the ‘illegal’ arrest in a move that is being widely seen as sponsored by the ruling BJD. The scale of the AT group’s operations is breath-taking indeed. From real estate to stock broking, gold trading to film making and cricket sponsoring, the company which began only in 2009 and folded up in 2013), had a finger in virtually every pie. Interrogation of Deepak Chandratan Pareek, the Mumbai based stock broker who allegedly helped obtain stock broking and gold trading licenses for the AT group, revealed that top bosses of the company used to splurge crores on showbiz stars, starlets and high society escorts at a five star hotel on the Mumbai-Pune highway every Saturday. On one occasion, cine star Sunny Leone is believed to have entertained the AT honchos for a fee of Rs 40 lakh. Sources in CBI say 11 MLAs, including a couple of ministers, have been dodging summons to appear before it for questioning on their links with the AT group, which appears to have thrived with the patronage of the entire top brass of the BJD. Several top police officers are also under the CBI scanner for their dubious role in first facilitating the operations of the chit fund scam and then badly botching up the probe after the scandal broke in early 2013. Constrained by a shortage of staff, the CBI office here has not been able to start the investigation against other players in the chit fund scam yet, but sources in the agency confirm that a large team of officers is being brought in from its offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru for the next round of investigation into the Seashore group, the biggest of the home grown companies with which the Naveen Patnaik government had signed a host of MoUs. Like the AT group, this company too had flourished with the patronage of BJD bigwigs. Seashore’s operations had grown big enough for it to open an office in Dubai, which was frequented by its mentor, who was a powerful leader of the ruling party at the time. Another chit fund company that had gone international as it were was the Green Ray International Limited (GRIL), the Balasore-based company which had forayed into mining in Nigeria with the money from the people of Odisha, besides opening an office in Dubai. The passport of Mir Shahiruddin, the promoter of the company, has now been impounded by Nigerian authorities and the process for his extradition begun after Indian authorities alerted their Nigerian counterparts about the criminal investigation he is facing here. Alok Jena, whose petition led to the Supreme Court ordering the CBI probe into the scam, is convinced that there is an underworld link that needs to be probed thoroughly by the CBI with help from other agencies like the enforcement directorate. The Naveen Patnaik government has been trying every trick in the book (and many not in the book too) to derail the investigation. The Speaker is reportedly sitting over the CBI’s plea to question BJD MLAs, including ministers, waiting for a nod from the Chief Minister, which has not been forthcoming. The ruling party has unleashed its leader in the Lok Sabha Bhartruhari Mahatab and sounded off loyal layers to openly defend the arrested former AG and rail against the CBI. While this at least is in the open, there are disturbing reports of strings being pulled at the highest quarters in New Delhi to get the CBI to go slow on the investigation. No wonder, CBI sources here admit that they are under ‘tremendous pressure’ not to dig too deep into the scam, especially its political links. Given the size of the scam, its possible underworld links, the international dimensions of the case and the powerful forces at work to scuttle the investigation, there certainly is merit in the demand made by some quarters for the Supreme Court to monitor the probe.