The Odisha High Court on Monday completed hearing on the anticipatory bail application of senior Banki BJD MlA Pravat Tripathy and reserved its judgement to be pronounced later.

Tripathy has approached the High Court seeking advance bail after he was interrogated and his houses were raided by CBI sleuths earlier this month in connection with his alleged link with chit fund company Artha Tatwa (AT) Group CMD Pradeep Sethy, who is already in CBI custody. 

Justice D Dash after hearing the counsels of CBI and Tripathy for at least in four sittings, reserved the judgment, thereby leading to speculations about the fate of the senior ruling party leader.

The CBI counsel vehemently opposed Tripathy's application saying that granting anticipatory bail at this stage would hamper the CBI investigation further. The CBI also told the court that an audio CD of a telephonic conversation between Tripathy and AT CMD Pradeep Sethy is available with the CBI in which the MlA was urging Sethy to help organise a cultural festival at Banki.

However, Tripathy's counsel Pitambar Acharya told the court that the CBI has not been able to produce any conclusive evidence to establish any link between the MlA and the AT Group CMD.

"The so-called audio CD in possession of the CBI lacks evidentiary validity and is not enough to warrant an arrest of my client, who is a responsible people's representative," Acharya argued.

It may be mentioned that the CBI had raided the houses of Tripathy at Banki and Cuttack. They had also raided the house of one of Tripathy's supporters at Banki and seized certain documents from a local cooperative bank.