Following the Odisha High Court’s rejection of the State Government’s recent request to spare a sitting judge for a judicial probe into the multi-crore chit fund scams, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday announced a judicial commission of inquiry headed by retired judge RK Patra, who was Chief Justice of the Sikkim High Court and Chairman of the Odisha Human Rights Commission.
Patnaik’s act ignored the persistent demand of opposition political parties for an inquiry into the scams by the CBI or a SIT under the guidance of the High Court.
Besides, Patnaik also announced creation of a “corpus fund up to Rs 300 crore” to protect the interests of the “genuine” chit fund investors.
Though the Chief Minister did not mention the timeframe for the Judicial Commission to complete its inquiry, earlier the Government had set the deadline of three months for it while announcing a judicial probe and urging the High Court to spare a sitting judge.
Patnaik said, “We are moving the High Court for constitution of some Special Courts for speedy trial of all the cases filed against the fraudulent chit fund companies.” Special Prosecutors would be engaged for effective handling of such cases, he said.
To receive complaints relating to chit fund irregularities, he said his Government has opened a cell in every district in the office of the Superintendent of Police. “We are putting in place a strong legal and financial arrangement so that people do not suffer undue losses,” he said. The corpus fund is part of this arrangement, he added.
However, the opposition Congress and BJP rejected the decision to probe the chit fund scams, which they said have been committed with patronage of ruling BJD leaders and reiterated their demand for a CBI investigation.
So far, as many as 280 cases have been filed against 127 chit fund companies and 315 persons, including AT Group chief Pradip Sethi and Seashore CMD Prasant Dash, have been arrested and sent to jail. According to official sources, the chit fund companies have committed frauds amounting to Rs 4,375 crore belonging to around seven lakh depositors.
The scams have taken a further political turn with an audio CD doing its rounds with alleged involvement of senior BJD MlA Pravat Tripathy, who on his part has filed a defamation suit challenging the allegation.