C'garh cabinet nod to withdraw cases against chit fund agents

The Chhattisgarh cabinet Tuesday gave its approval to withdraw cases against agents of chit fund companies that allegedly duped investors to the tune of several crores during the erstwhile BJP government in the state.

The state cabinet, during its meeting chaired by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Tuesday, discussed the issue of withdrawal of cases against agents of chit fund companies and return money to investors, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ravindra Choubey said.

He was talking to the media about the cabinet decisions after the meeting.

The issue of withdrawing cases was mentioned by the Congress in its poll manifesto.

The Congress had said the local youth who worked asagents of thesechitfundcompanies had to face the wrath of police after directors of these fraud companies fled with the people's hard-earned money of the people.

"The action is being taken to withdraw the cases lodged against the agents of chit fund companies. So, in the cabinet meeting it was decided to expedite the process of withdrawal of cases," the minister said.

"As many as 286 agents were arrested, 263 challans were put up in the courts and around 424 cases were registered in connection with irregular chit fund companies in the state," he said.

It is estimated that 2,70,616 investors had deposited around over Rs 1,105 crore in the chit fund companies. A total of 199 FIRs were registered against these companies in the state, Choubey said.

During the meeting, it was also discussed to formulate a policy to ensure return of money to investors. Setting up special courts or appointing special prosecution officer to facilitate the return of money to investors was also discussed, he added.

During its campaign ahead of the recent state assembly election, the Congress had raised the issue of alleged chit fund scam worth Rs 5,000 crore and claimed it was committed under the protection of the Raman Singh government in the state.

The party had claimed that over 161chit fund companies in the state had duped investors to the tune of over Rs 5,000 crore in the last nine years of the BJP rule.

The party had promised to probe the alleged scam and take action against the guilty.

Meanwhile, the cabinet also decided against merging District Cooperative Central Banks with the Apex Bank.

In this regard, the Cooperative Department has been given directives.

"Expansion and strengthening of the cooperative sector were also discussed in the cabinet meet," Choubey said.

The previous BJP government in the state had last year decidedto merge all district cooperative centralbanks (DCCBs) of the state into a singleState CooperativeBank (Apex bank).