2014 was a year of upheavals and their conflicting ramifications. There was a change of guards at the nation’s Capital. The Congress was and is in disarray; and the Sangh Parivar did not eventually need any external support to give India a stable Government.
Modi emerged as the man of the year. The AAP, claiming to be a party with a difference, ruled Delhi for 49 days. Jayalalithaa had to spend a few days in jail and GK Vasan revived the Tamil Maanila Congress, founded by his father. India’s twenty-ninth State Telangana was born by carving it out of Andhra Pradesh. From Bangalore to Burdwan, from Sukma to Sonitpur and Kokrajhar and in remote villages of Odisha and Chhattisgarh, the militants and subversionists displayed their madness. Women felt increasingly unsafe, whether it was in Bangalore, Delhi or in most other parts.
The third gender received judicial recognition through the Supreme Court. In the realm of administration, the Planning Commission awaited its reorientation or substitution, the lok Pal Act remained mute from its birth and the higher judiciary grudgingly awaited implementation of the amendment to the Constitution of India ushering in a Judicial Commission replacing the collegiums system. ISRO successfully launched the heaviest rocket, the first Mars orbiter, brought nuclear energy to the forefront and moved further towards India having its own navigation system. History revealed itself in the discovery of Telhara University near Nalanda and of a human skeleton with Harappan Crown in Baghpat.
2014 was also a year of massive campaigns in the socio-political field – from cleaning Ganga to Jan-Dhan Yojana or from Swachh Bharat to Adarsh Gram or Make in India. The country lost many important citizens including eminent jurist and champion of civil liberties Justice VR Krishna Iyer, actress Zohra Sehgal, a politician knocked down on the road Gopinath Munde and ace journalist BG Verghese. A few discordant notes were also heard in the avoidable mixing of religion with politics.
The TMC and Mamata took on the Central Government for the alleged anti-people measures in the land Acquisition Ordinance leading to the dilution of the new lA Act. The first citizen of the country narrated his account of the “Indira Gandhi Years” and a large number of politicians and journalists including Natwar Singh and Rajdeep Sardesai authored their experiments with life. The Central Government celebrated the end of the year with re-promulgating a number of Ordinances as they could not be passed by Parliament.
Nearer home in Odisha, the BJD strengthened itself, continued to rule with a brute majority and was caught in the storms of a series of scams, the larger ones among them being mining, chit fund ad land/flat/house distribution. The OPCC gave itself a new younger, clean and organisation-man as its president. The heavy clouds of the chit fund scam hung over builders, contact-men, some mediapersons, bureaucracy, judiciary and political parties.
Yesterday, at the end of the year, the slowing down of the intensity of the investigation by the CBI into the chit-fund scam has been commented upon. On the New Year Day, it would be appropriate to pick out and study two news items and discern what they imply and indicate.
The stories, published in the last two months, make a very interesting reading: “Odisha chit fund scam: CBI questions DIG Rajesh Kumar: The CBI on Sunday interrogated Rajesh Kumar, DIG of North-Central Range in Talcher, for more than three hours in connection with the Seashore chit fund scam. Meanwhile, sources said Anu Garg, a 1991-batch Odisha cadre IAS officer who has been on Central deputation as Joint Secretary in the PMO since October 2012, is also likely to be questioned.
Till a few months ago, Kumar himself was investigating chit fund companies including Seashore. The CBI has so far interrogated and arrested builders, mediapersons, politicians and Seashore executives in connection with the case. CBI sources said Kumar was questioned about his links to Subhankar Nayak, a broker arrested by the agency last month. Nayak allegedly helped the businesses of Seashore and Artha Tatwa by building a relationship with top IAS and IPS officers, journalists and politicians of the ruling BJD. Kumar only said, ‘I have told the CBI whatever I had to tell them.’ It is learnt that Kumar’s name figured in diaries, envelopes and other documents seized by the CBI from Nayak’s apartment in Bhubaneswar on November 18.
Accordingly to the list of seized articles, submitted to the special CBI court and accessed by the Indian Express, a bunch of 12 envelopes contained the names of some officers and advance payments purportedly made to them. Kumar’s name figured in this list. The list also refers to DIG/SBP (Sambalpur, Northern Range) and SP, Dhenkanal, but without giving any name or year. later in the evening, Kendrapara SP Satish Gajbhiye was interrogated for about two-and-a-half hours by the CBI. Gajbhiye’s name came up in Nayak’ diary as SP, Dhenkanal, it is learnt.
Before his transfer to Kendrapara, Gajbhiye was SP in Dhenkanal district. Sources said Nayak allegedly invested in Gajbhiye’s crusher unit. According to CBI sources, Kumar was interrogated on suspicion of derailing the chit fund probe. The 1998-batch officer, the first IPS to be questioned in connection with the scam, investigated more than a dozen chit fund companies – including Seashore – in the past two years as the DIG of Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the CID. He took over as North-Central Rage DIG more than a month ago.
As head of the EOW, he was leading the chit fund investigation till the CBI took over the probe under orders from the Supreme Court. Apart from Kumar, the list submitted to the court mentions the name of Anu Garg, the official in the PMO who was earlier Secretary in Odisha’s Health & Family Welfare Department.” “Explosive: Subhankar’s tell-all diaries singe Odisha’s high ans mighty:
The CBI has stumbled upon some startling revelations during the course of the raid it conducted on the house of fixer Subhankar Nayak on November 18 in connection with the Odisha chit fund scam. The explosive information contained in the diaries seized during the raid is enough to ruin the reputation of a number of influential persons, including senior IAS, IPS officers, other officers and politicians. One of the diaries seized has details of payments made on behalf of the Seashore group of Companies to IAS officer Anu Garg, one lalit (widely suspected to be senior journalist. lalit Pattajoshi) and a certain ‘litu’. The seized items include a Government of Orissa diary of 2011, which contains details of payments made by Seashore to the then collector of Sambalpur, SPs of Dhenkanal, Keonjhar, Sundergarh and Baleswar, DIG Sambalpur, and several others. A list of articles seized from Nayak’s residence by the CBI, …. talks of nine bunches of envelopes of Seashore Securities ltd. and Seashore Multi-purpose Cooperative Society.
The seizure list also includes another bunch of 12 envelopes, which contain the names of some other officers and payments made to them. The envelopes bear the names of one BC Jena, one Dandsena of Badagada police station, PK Jena, Jitu Patra, etc. The envelope bunch also contain documents mentioning details of advance bill payments made to then DIG, Sambalpur Rajesh Kumar, IIC (Shakti) and then SP, Dhenkanal.
A diary for the year 2012 of the Bhubaneswar Cooperative Super Bazaar seized from Nayak’s residence mentions payments and receipts made to one Sahu Babu, Satya Mishra, JE Panchayati Raj, one Madan, Jitu Bhai, etc. Another diary of Krishna brand of the year 2009 contains names of several persons including IAS and IPS officers, MPs and MlAs. The seizure list also mentions seizure of several documents pertaining to land deals, power of attorney documents etc.
The CBI has seized 14 ATM cards of ICICI Bank, SBI, HDFC, Canara Bank, UCO Bank etc. from Nayak’s residence. Besides, the central agency has also seized two gold biscuits of 50 grams each and Rs.14,63,450 in cash. CBI had arrested Nayak for his alleged links with ponzi firm Seashore Group on November 18 hours after his house in Chandrama Apartment was raided. During its raid, the agency seized a host of documents that proved his strong links in political and bureaucratic circles in the State.
Utterances of Jagabandhu Panda (linked with Artha Tatwa and Swastik India) and the details of assets of Saroj Sahu (linked with the Odisha CM) are yet to be adequately investigated.”
The above are not indicative of a systematic and intensive probe eliciting all pieces of information from all the sources. The news reports have not been doubted by anyone. However, many named by the persons hitherto examined by the CBI, have not been appropriately investigated upon or examined. The time has come to give the CBI a “wake up” call. let there be no occasion for any adverse inferences relating to the credibility of an organisation such as the CBI. When many birds are chirping and singing before the investigator, it would be unfortunate for the premier investigator to be blamed for behaving like a “caged parrot”. This may be disturbing, but this concerns us all!
Happy New Year!
(The writer, a Senior Advocate, is a former All India Service officer, a former diplomat, a former editor, a former president of Orissa High Court Bar Association and a former Advocate General of Odisha. jayantdas@hotmail.com)