Odisha chit fund scam: ED seeks 14-day remand for Pradeep Sethy

Reported by Santosh Jagdev
Bhubaneswar, Dec 19:

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today filed a petition in the Khurda district and sessions judge court here seeking to take Pradip Sethy, the CMD of Artha Tatwa (AT) group, on remand for a period of 14 days to interrogate him in connection with the multi-crore chit fund scam in Odisha.

After accepting the petition filed by the counsel for ED, the court postponed the hearing on the remand petition to December 24.

Though the CBI had submitted the AT Group preliminary charge sheet in the special CBI court here charging Sethy along with 15 others on December 11, the investigation into the affairs of the company is still open.

The ED wants to question him on the money trail and track down the crores of rupees the company had collected from lakhs of gullible investors in the state, sources said.

The ED, which is inquiring into the money trail, would seek information from Sethy on the investments made by his company in and outside the state and identify other influential persons who facilitated the fraudulent operations of the AT Group. The findings of ED would certainly help CBI to arrest those influential gathering hard evidences, sources added.