The Supreme Court on Friday directed builder Tirupati Panigrahi, chairman of the Hi-Tech Group, to deposit the remaining Rs13 crore in four weeks, failing which it would cancel his conditional bail.
A two-member Division Bench of the apex court directed Panigrahi to deposit Rs13 crore of the Rs63.5 crore for refund to people who paid money but did not get the land promised to them by his company.
The apex court on February 21, 2014 had granted conditional bail to Panigrahi and directed him to deposit Rs63.5 crore to be refunded to the duped land buyers.
Earlier, Panigrahi had deposited Rs20 crore, Rs18 crore, Rs9 crore and Rs3.5 crore in four installments.
Notably, the Economic Offences Wing (EoW) of the State Crime Branch had arrested Tirupati and his two relatives and directors of the Hi-Tech Group, Tirupati Choudhury and Madhusudan Panigrahi, on December 25, 2012 for reneging on the promise of providing residential plots to people after taking money from them in 2009.
The probe by the EOW had revealed that the Hi-tech Group owed more than Rs315.96 crore to the investors. The group had received money from 17,181 investors with promise of providing them with residential plots. As many as 16,901 investors are yet to get land.
The EOW has registered at least five cases against the group so far. The Supreme Court had asked Tirupati Panigrahi to return depositors’ money within three to four months.
Conducting a hearing in the land fraud case, the apex court turned down the plea of Panigrahi, who had sought at least six months to start the process to refund the amount to investors.
The Hi-Tech chief owns real estate firms, two private medical colleges and several professional educational institutes under the business conglomerate Hi-Tech Group at different places of the State.