The Supreme Court has asked Alok Jena, the petitioner in the mega chit fund scam in Odisha, to suggest names of senior counsels to act as Amicus Curiae in the case.
During the hearing of the case on Wednesday, a Bench of the court comprising Justices TS Thakur and C Nagappan also allowed Jena to change his counsel Suresh Tripathy and choose somebody else in his place. The decision came after the court heard both Jena and Tripathy in persons.
Jena had pleaded with the court to allow him to discharge Tripathy as his counsel as their relationship had soured irretrievably following the latter’s refusal to follow instructions to produce certain important documents relating to the larger conspiracy angle of the scam.Sources said the differences between Jena and his counsel arose over the latter’s refusal to submit before the court certain documents on Green Ray, an Odisha-based chit fund company with operations spread across 14 other States in India and Dubai and Nigeria.The next hearing in the case is on April 23.