1,124 depositors duped by chit fund firms got their money back

At many as 1,124 small depositors, duped by chit fund companies in Odisha, have got their money back, Debraj Rout, secretary of the Justice M M Das Commission of Inquiry, probing into the multi-crore ponzi scam in the state said today.
"Money, of as many as 1,124 depositors have been refunded so far," Rout told mediapersons after handing over the panel's second interim report to the state government here.
The probe panel has prepared the second interim report on the basis of 61,212 petitions, out of more than eight lakh affidavits filed with it.
While complaints have been filed by the investors against as many as 174 companies, notices have been sent to 110 firms by the Commission seeking their reply. Other 65 companies have been informed through newspaper advertisements, he said.

According to sources, the Economic Offences Wing of the state Crime Branch has not been able to provide information regarding 26 such companies which were active in Odisha a couple of years ago.
(Reopens ERG11)

The Commission, among other things, was asked to make suggestions as to how the smaller investors (investing less than Rs 10,000) would get back their money from the corpus fund (Rs 300 crore) set up by the state government.
While the contents of the first interim report has not been made public yet, the submission of second report- at a time when the panchayat elections in the State are underway - has drawn flak from the opposition political parties.

Involvement of several BJD leaders in chit fund scam is a major plank on which the opposition parties are campaigning to corner the ruling party in the elections and when the model code of conduct is in force, the BJP and Congress have questioned the timing of the report submission.
Moreover, the Commission has not also covered enough grounds necessitating it to submit its second report after the first one was submitted less than a year ago.
"Out of an estimated eight lakh affidavits received, the Commission had submitted its first report after vetting only 27000 affidavits. Now, what was the necessity to submit the second report after examining another 34,000 affidavits", questioned BJP spokesman Sajjan Sharma adding that his party has complained about it to the State Election Commissioner.

BJP and Congress last year had demanded to remove Justice Das from probing further into the scam for his remarks about the poor investors and giving a clean chit to the government on the scam at a BJD-sponsored public meeting.