After an advocate, a political leader and his associate and a builder, now a police officer arrested by the CBI in the multi-crore chit fund scam was granted bail by the Odisha High Court on Friday.
Justice Raghubir Dash allowed suspended Crime Branch DSP Pramod Kumar Panda to be released on bail after depositing an amount of `10 lakh and two sureties each having solvency of like amount.
Former Advocate General Asok Mohanty, BJD MlA Pravat Tripathy, his associate Ranjan Das and builder Sagar Ray have walked free on bail on different dates earlier after they were arrested by the CBI.
Panda, alleged to have links with chit fund company Artha Tawa (AT) Group CMD Pradeep Sethy, had been arrested by the CBI on December 19 last after he was quizzed by CBI sleuths for several times.
Panda was arrested under Sections 120 (B), 420, 406, 409 of IPC. The CBI in its chargesheet had said `9 lakh was transferred from AT Group account to Panda’s wife, who owned a computer institute.
It was also alleged that the cop was receiving costly gifts and freebies from Sethy in a quid pro quo arrangement.