The Justice MM Das Commission of Enquiry, probing into the chit fund scam in the State for over four years now, is unlikely to investigate further or identify the ‘large’ investors in various chit fund companies. This is apprehended following the latest notification issued by the State Government in this regard.
The Government in its December 12 notification has made a change in the terms of reference (ToR) for the commission in which the word ‘small’ is added to identify the bona fide investors. The earlier ToR was to identify the ‘bona fide’ investors and suggest measures as to how to refund the investors’ money.
In all its seven interim reports submitted so far to the Government, the commission has only identified the small investors, i.e., the investors who had invested less than Rs 10,000 in the chit fund companies. Accordingly, vetting over four lakh affidavits, the commission has identified over three lakh small investors.
Sources said another five lakh affidavits are still pending before the commission for scrutiny and most of these affidavits were filed by the investors who invested more than Rs 10,000. Following the December 12 notification, it is now not clear whether the large investors are going to get back their money from the Government corpus fund. The Government had set up a corpus fund of Rs 300 crore in 2016 to pay back the identified investors. Notably, the commission has received nearly 10 lakh affidavits from investors from across the State who were duped by nearly 500 chit fund companies with a combined amount of over Rs 3,000 crore.