Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has suffered a huge loss of face as the Odisha High Court declined to nominate one of its sitting judges for a judicial inquiry that Patnaik ordered into the multi-crore chit fund scams in the State.
The High Court’s decision was communicated by its Registrar General to the State Home Department on Friday. Patnaik in his kneejerk reaction on Saturday said he is thinking of the next step to be taken for probe into the scams.
According to sources, High Court Chief Justice C Nagappan declined the Government’s request reportedly on the ground that the very purpose for which the Government made the request was not a matter of national interest. The Supreme Court had clearly stated that no sitting judge of any High Court should be appointed to head any judicial probe until and unless the matter is of any national interest, sources said.
The Chief Minister’s announcement of judicial probe was then decried by several opposition political parties saying that he was trying to pass on the buck knowing it very well that the Chief Justice would not spare a sitting judge for the purpose for the very fact that the High Court is already finding it very difficult to take care of the mounting pending cases with insufficient judges.
The Chief Minister had announced a judicial probe on May 30. Several thousands of smalltime investors who have been duped by the fraud money circulation companies have been on agitation for more than a month
They are demanding that the Government should take immediate measures for return of their hard-earned money.
The opposition political parties have been insisting on a CBI inquiry into the scams on the ground that a judicial probe would take a long time to settle the issue as is evident from the experiences with previous judicial commissions entrusted with inquiries into other issues.
Now with the High Court declining to spare a sitting judge, almost a month has elapsed since the Chief Minister’s announcement of his decision. What is considered to be important in the chit fund scams is an earliest-possible inquiry process to bring the kingpins of the frauds to book and ensure return of the swindled money to the depositors.
More significantly, Naveen Patnaik’s dillydallying over the chit fund scams is attributed by many to his alleged efforts to save some of his Ministers and ruling BJD MlAs, whom at least the head of one chit fund firm, Artha Tatwa Group CMD Pradip Sethi, claimed to have paid protection money to carry out his tainted business.
Moreover, while the State Government’s existing law is not effective at all to deal with the chit fund fraudsters, the Chief Minister has also remained indifferent towards the opposition parties’ demand for creation of a corpus fund to at least partly pay the depositors their money as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has done for the benefit of the investors of the Saradha Group.