Chit fund probe panel submits another interim report to govt

The Justice M M Das Commission of Enquiry, probing the chit fund scam in the Odisha for nearly 30 months now, submitted its third interim report to the government today.
Sources said the third report of the commission has identified 41,519 small investors (investing less than Rs 10,000) in at least 176 tainted companies, which duped them.
Till date the commission has identified 60,941 such investors and the cases of another 1.38 lakh investors will be taken up in due course, the sources said.
The commission is likely to take up the cases of bigger investors after concluding the investigations into the cases of small investors.

It had received nearly 10 lakh affidavits from investors across the state who were duped by over 400 chit fund companies who made away with a combined amount of over Rs 3000 crore.
The commission was set up in July 2013 and Justice Das became its head in February 2015 following the death of the then head Justice R K Patra.

Justice Das had submitted his first interim report in May 2016 about a month after his controversial remarks on the "greediness" of the investors and giving a clean chit to the state government.
He submitted his second report in February this year when the panchayat elections were underway, drawing flak from the opposition political parties.

The third report came at a time when the State is witnessing a fierce political slugfest over the dubious transactions in the ruling BJD's bank account, which allegedly received huge funds from unknown sources. There are also allegations of discrepancies in the statements of election expenses of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his party to the Election Commission of India.
The BJP and the Congress had last year demanded removal of Justice Das from probing further into the chit fund scam for his unpleasant remarks made at a BJD-sponsored public meeting about the poor investors and giving a clean chit to the government in the scam.