Five more people arrested by the CBI for their alleged involvements with the Artha Tatwa (AT) chit fund scam and dubious links with AT Group chief Pradeep Sethy were granted conditional bails by the Orissa High Court here on Friday.
Television channel owner Manoj Das, newspaper owner Bikash Swain, builder Vineet lalani and AT Group executives Sambit Khuntia and Manoj Patnaik were granted conditional bails by Justice BK Nayak.
All the five were arrested by the CBI on different days and were lodged in jails for over two years. While Manoj Patnaik had been released on bail for a brief period in 2015, he was rearrested in a subsequent case in this connection.
The HC apparently granted bail to the quintet after, it was established that the prosecution has covered substantial grounds in investing their roles in the scam and several charge-sheets have been filed in the cases.
The HC had previously granted bail in this connection to BJD MlA Pravat Tripathy, builder Sagar Kumar Ray and Crime Branch DSP Pramod Panda. Similarly, following HC intervention, the Khordha District and Sessions Court had granted bail to former Advocate General Asok Mohanty and Additional Government Advocate Debashis Panda.