Govt shielding A-G in chitgate: BJP

OST Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Oct 7:

Accusing the Odisha government of never allowing the law to take its own course in an effort to shield the perpetrators, the state wing of BJP today trained its guns at the government for not taking action against Advocate General (AG) Ashok Mohanty, who had purchased a house from Artha Tatwa CMD Pradeep Sethy.

“The government has made an attempt to hoodwink the Supreme Court, which is hearing chit fund cases, to sweep the matter of AG, who had purchased a house from the Artha Tatwa CMD, under the carpet. While the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) had registered a case against Pilakhi Swain for purchasing a Mercedes Benz car from Astha International’s Subhransu Lenka, no case has been registered against the AG for buying a house from Pradeep Sethy, which shows the government’s intention to protect the Mohanty,” alleged state BJP Spokesperson Sajjan Sharma.

In Para 18 of the counter affidavit submitted in the Supreme Court, the State Government has said that a Mercedes Benz car was seized by EOW from one Pilakhi Swain, who had bought the car from Astha International’s Subhransu Lenka. A case was registered against Swain for buying the car.

Para 21 of the same affidavit also states that Ashok Mohanty had bought a house from Pradeep Sethy in Cuttack before the latter was arrested. However, no action was taken against Mohanty for buying the house, said Sharma.

Questioning at whose behest the law took its course here, Sharma warned that chief minister Naveen Patnaik will have to pay for protecting Mohanty.