Chit fund company managing director sentenced to 5 yrs RI

The managing director of a chit fund company in Odisha's Ganjam district was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for five years by a special court here Thursday for duping investors.

The judge of the designated court handling chit fund cases, Dipti Ranjan Kanunngo also convicted six others associated with the company -- SS Credit Cooperative Private Limited -- and pronounced two years jail term for each of them.

The court also slapped a fine of Rs 11.5 lakh on the company's managing director Santosh Kumar Tiwadi and Rs 2 lakh each on six others.

The convicted in the case included the company's directors Soudamini Tripathy, Sekhar Suman Tripathy, partners P Sanjeev Patra and T Rajiv Patra and two agents - Sushant Satapathy and Kuna Behera.

The court sentenced all the seven accused persons holding them guilty under the Odisha Protection of Interest of Depositors (OPID) Act after examining at least 24 witnesses, special public prosecutor Bijay Kumar Pradhan said.

Tiwadi had collected around Rs 50 lakh from at least 43 people in the area with assurances of giving them double the amount of their deposits, police said.

As the ponzi scheme company did not refund the money to the depositors, one of them had lodged an FIR with police at Buguda on December 5, 2014, police added.