CBI honchos in Odisha to take stock of Rose Valley probe

Reported by Santosh Jagdev
Bhubaneswar, Sep 22:

CBI Joint Director Rajiv Singh and DIG S Bagchi arrived at the CBI headquarters in Odisha’s capital city this morning to take stock of the investigation conducted so far in the Rose Valley chit fund scam, sources in the agency said.

The senior CBI officials reached here at around 10 am and are scheduled to attend a meeting with the investigating officers of Rose Valley and CBI SP in Bhubaneswar Rajiv Ranjan to discuss the evidence gathered till date from the Shibamoy Dutta, Managing Director (MD) of Rose Valley group and Director Ashok Kumar Saha, who are in CBI custody for seven days.

On September 17, a Special CBI court here had granted CBI permission to take Dutta and Saha on a seven-day remand to interrogate them about their alleged involvement in the multi-thousand crore chit fund scam.

Earlier, a designated CBI court in Kolkata had allowed the agency to take Dutta and Saha on transit remand till September 17 to produce them in Bhubaneswar where the case has been registered by the agency, CBI sources said.

CBI had arrested both the accused earlier for their active involvement in cheating the public and misappropriation of public funds.

In Odisha, the Kolkata based Rose Valley Group has duped the gullible investors through its 65 branches.

Acting on the 25 cases registered against the Ponzi company, the state crime branch, which was probing the scam before the investigation was taken over by the CBI on Supreme Court direction, had raided the company’s offices in June 2013.

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the state crime branch had moved the finance department for confiscation of properties of the firm in June last year. The property identified included 17 acres of land in Balasore and Puri, besides bank deposits worth Rs 53 crore.

In February this year, a special designated court in Cuttack had ordered public auction of the property and assets of the Rose Valley Group and distribution of the sales proceeds among the depositors. The total value of attached properties, assets, deposits and cash is pegged at Rs 63.64 crore.

The CBI had raided Rose Valley Group’s office in the city on March 4 as part of its nationwide clampdown on the company’s operations. The probe agency had raided company’s offices at 43 places across the country.

Sources said the investigating sleuths had seized some incriminating documents from the offices of the chit fund firm. Some photographs featuring political leaders alongside company officials had also been seized during the raids. One of these photos featured Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik with a top Rose Valley executive.