ED advocate interrogated by CBI in chitfund scam

Enforcement Directorate advocate Debashis Panda today deposed before CBI here in connection with the multi-crore chitfund scam involving Artha Tatwa Group.
Panda was questioned for about three hours at the CBI office here.
He was asked by Orissa High Court, which had earlier given him interim protection, to appear before the central investigating agency today to cooperate with it in the investigation.
He is the second senior lawyer of the state after ex-advocate general Ashok Mohanty, who has been questioned for alleged link with the chitfund scam. Mohanty was arrested by CBI on September 22, 2014.
Panda, who served as additional government advocate from 2009 and 2014, had signed as a witness in the sale deed of a house that Mohanty purchased from AT's chief Pradeep Sethy.

CBI in its chargesheet said Mohanty did not pay all the money to Sethy for the purchase of the house.
CBI sources said Panda's name had figured in the documents seized during raids at the residence of Crime Branch DSP Pramod Panda, who is now in jail in connection with the ponzi scheme scam, indicating his complicity in the AT scam and sought the court's permission to interrogate him.
"I am an honest man and an honest lawyer," Panda told newsmen outside CBI office after his interrogation.