Odisha chit fund scam : CBI files chargesheet against former Advocate General of Odisha, Ashok Mohanty and 15 others

The Central Bureau of Investigation today filed a preliminary charge sheet in the case before the Special CBI Court in Bhubaneswar, against the Artha Tatwa (AT) Group, a major player in the  multi-thousand crore chit fund scam in Odisha. 

  

16 persons have been charge-sheeted in the case including AT Group chief Pradeep Kumar Sethy, BJD MLA from Banki Pravat Tripathy and former Advocate General of Odisha, Ashok Mohanty. 

The charge sheet, which cites 250 witnesses, has framed charges against the accused under several sections of the IPC, including 120 (B), 406, 411, 409, 420, 468, 471 of IPC and sections 4, 5, 6 of the Prize Chitt and Money Circulation (Banning) Act, 1978.

The preliminary charge sheet laid against the AT group said it duped investors of at least Rs 200 crore by floating seven companies in the state : : AT Multi-Purpose Cooperative Society, AT Multi state Cooperative society, AT Infra India Limited, AT Enterprises Private Ltd, Orison Properties Pvt Ltd, Kamyab TV Private Ltd, Tilakraj Publication Private Limited.

This is the second chargesheet filed by the CBI in the mega chit fund scam in Odisha which it is investgating as per the orders of the Supreme Court. The CBI had first laid a chargesheet in the chit fund scam case against Green India Private Limited on December 2.

The agency has registered 44 cases against as many companies for alleged swindling of deposits of investors who were lured through the offer of attractive returns on their investment. 

The complete list of the 16 persons charge sheeted today are as follows:

1- Pradeep Sethy, Chief Managing Driector (CMD)

2- Jyotiprakash Jayprakash, Director

3- Sambit Kumar Khuntia, Director

4- Shreekrushna Padhi, AT Accountant

5- Bikash Swain, Proprietor of Odia daily ‘Suryaprava’

6- Ranjan Kumar Dash, Co-founder of the Artha Tatwa (AT) Group and Founder of Swastik India Multi-State Cooperative Agency

7- Manoj Kumar Dash, Kamyab Television owner

8- Madhusudan Mohanty, Proprietor of Odia newspaper ‘Odisha Bhaskar’

9- Dharmendra Kumar Bothra, Real Estate broker

10- Deepak Chandratan Parekh, Mumbai-based stock exchange broker

11- Ashok Mohanty, Former Odisha Advocate General

12- Preeti Bhatia, Mumbai-based Model and Television Serial Producer

13- Pravat Kumar Tripathy, BJD MLA from Banki

14- Vineet Kumar Lalani, Builder

15- Dillip Kumar Mohanty, Businessman

16-Sagar Kumar Ray, Builder and Director ofOrisons Properties Limited