A Supreme Court Bench comprising Justices TS Thakur and C Nagappan on Wednesday reserved its order in the PIl case relating to the Odisha chit fund scam after hearing the final arguments from both the parties. The court is likely to give its order once the State Government submits its opinion on the issue to the court in writing, sources said.
After listening to extensive arguments of State Government lawyer Gopal Subramanium, who said the investigations by the Odisha Crime Branch were very thorough, the court was not inclined to allow the investigations to be continued by the State police.
Subramanium conceded that the probe in respect of the 37 companies in his list should be handed over to the CBI but argued that the seven additional companies mentioned in the order of March 26 should be left to the State police as those were culled out of a list of 11 companies given by the petitioner on the previous date.
However, the court, after listening to arguments from both sides, was of the view that it would in the interest of justice that the matters be transferred to the CBI.The court seemed inclined to hand over all the 44 cases to the CBI for its investigation and also appeared in favour of the CBI continuing the investigation rather than starting a de novo investigation.
Amicus Curiae Shyam Diwan, senior advocate who had supported the stance that all these cases should be transferred to the CBI, added that there should be a time-to-time inspection by the court relating to the progress of the cases.
Petitioner Alok Jena’s counsels Sunil Mathews and Aditya Shukla pointed out to the court the instances of Green Ray International and the large-scale operations run by them and the fact that they were operating in 14 States as well as in Nigeria and Dubai and claimed that they were the “biggest fish” of them all. It appears that the CBI would be asked to investigate the cases of 44 companies which find mention in the lists submitted to the court and which have been noticed in the order of March 26 passed by the court.
Another aspect that Jena’s counsel pointed out was the threats and intimidation faced by him and his wife from a particular DSP, Pramod Kumar Panda, who is connected with the Crime Branch which was investigating this chit fund case. The counsel specifically mentioned that two DSPs had travelled to Delhi, and while one had sworn the affidavit before the court and assisted Gopal Subramanium, the other had intimidated and threatened the petitioner and his wife.
It was also mentioned by the petitioner’s counsel that according to Odisha Government official documents the DSP was suspended and an inquiry was pending against him to which the court mentioned that it would consider the submissions of the counsel in this regard. The final order of the court is expected shortly.