Noted human rights activist Jayanta Kumar Das on Monday urged the chit fund scam petitioner Alok Jena to move the Supreme Court (SC) for an SC-monitored inquiry into the mega scam since, he said, the involvement of many ruling party MlAs, Ministers and even the Chief Minister is getting clear with the process of the ongoing CBI investigation.
"Despite a Reserve Bank of India warning and the Union Finance Ministry's letter in 2011 to the State Government about the fraudulent acts of some chit fund firms, particularly the Seashore Group, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Minister Puspendra Singhdeo, MlA Amar Prasad Satpathy, Bhubaneswar MP Prasanna Patasani, the then Rajya Sabha BJD member Pyarimohan Mohapatra, present law Minister Arun Sahu, MlA Pravat Ranjan Biswal, former Minister Prasanna Acharya and Banki MlA Pravat Kumar Tripathy had inaugurated/attended many functions of the Seashore and other chit fund companies in the year 2013 on different occasions to promote their businesses and even appealed to people to invest in these companies," charged Das in a Press release.
He even alleged that though the State Home Department had asked the Crime Branch police on April 27, 2004 to keep a strict vigil on the functioning of 58 chit fund companies, no tangible steps were taken by the latter.
Das said, "The Chief Minister and his Ministers had attended the function of fraud chit fund companies like Seashore and Artha Tatwa even after the warning of the RBI and the Union Ministry of Finance which showed that all of them are directly involved in this mega chit fund scam."
Hence, all of them should be arrested immediately by the CBI, he demanded. aMany rights activists also alleged that BJD goons are being used in the name of supporters by chit fund firms and even political leaders in a bid to pressurise the CBI not to summon or arrest ruling party leaders.
They further alleged that the unruly scene created by a large number of people claiming themselves as supporters of Pravat Tipathy on the day of his arrest exposed the nexus between the State Government and chit fund firms.
The activists also claimed that around Rs 21 crore has been transferred to the account of Pravat Pripathy and others by the AT Group.