Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in Bhubaneswar has arrested two accused persons namely Nishant Prakash Jaiswal and Amar Danish, the respective State Field Officer and Project In-Charge of Vastav India Trust for Odisha on Tuesday from Ranchi of Jharkhand in EOW PS case (No-21 Dt: 30.11.2022 U/s 406/420/467/468/471/120-B IPC, r/w Section-6 of OPID Act, 2011).

After arrest, the accused persons were produced before the Lower Division Court of JMFC in Ranchi and were brought to Bhubaneswar on the strength of 43 hours transit remand.

The accused persons will be produced before OPID Court in Cuttack today. The above-referred case is the outcome of an inquiry conducted on a petition of Ms. Sebati Mahanta and others against Vastav India Trust. The allegation was against the president, secretary, CMD, and project in-charge of Vastav India Trust for duping the public and parents on the pretext of selling and supplying LED bulbs in their solar awareness program and giving pre-matriculation scholarship to the students in their ‘Chuuloo Aasman’ program to the tune of Rs 4 crore approx.

Subsequently, they disappeared by closing down their offices. The ‘Vastav India Trust’ registered with Sub-Registrar, Ranchi, Jharkhand, opened an office at Bomikhal, Bhubaneswar in March 2022. The arrested accused persons namely Amar Danish and Nishant Prakash Jaiswal being the respective Project In-Charge and State Field of the said Trust, in connivance with others launched two programmes on ‘solar awareness’ and ‘pre-matriculation scholarship’ namely “Chuuloo Aasman”.

Under the solar awareness programme, they used to collect Rs 1,650 in cash from each applicant as a member fee with the assurance of supplying them with LED bulbs. The survey application form provided by the trust contained the logo of the Ministry of MSME, Govt. of India which has been forged in order to win the trust of the general public. In their pre-matriculation scholarship program named “Chuuloo Aasman”, the trust was offering a scholarship of Rs 1,000 per month for up to 24 months on their one-time deposit of Rs 3,000 as a membership charge.

The scholarship amount was payable to the bank account opened in the name of the parents of the concerned students. In this way, the Trust collected approximately Rs 4 crore from more than 3,500 persons, both public and parents. After taking one-time membership fees, the Trust initially sent Rs 1,000/- each to some of the students but never paid any amount thereafter.

Suddenly, the Trust and the office-bearers vanished by closing down their offices. The money collected fraudulently by the Trust was misappropriated by the president, secretary, project in-charge, and other officials of the Trust. The Trust was inducing the gullible parents and general public in the name of social welfare programme and awareness. In order to facilitate its fraudulent activities, they had appointed block coordinators and other officials in districts like Sundargarh, Bhadrak, Nabarangpur, Kandhamal, Nayagarh, Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Bolangir, Dhenkanal etc.

The Trust has no authority to collect the deposits. The field of operation of the Trust spreads over states like Odisha, Jharkhand, Delhi, and Bihar. EOW has alerted the concerned authorities and police of these states. During the investigation, it was found that Rs 10 lakhs had been transferred to the account of the arrested accused Nishant Prakash Jaiswal from Vastav India Trust, and Rs 11 lakhs had been transferred to the account of his wife.

Similarly, Rs 4.7 lakh has been transferred to the account of arrested accused Amar Danish apart from Vastav India Trust, and lakhs of rupees have directly been transferred by the victims to his account. During the investigation, many incriminating documents like the Trust Deed of Vastav India Trust, fake money receipts issued to the investors, blank cheques, six numbers of ATM cards, the visiting card of Vastav India, and mobile phones were seized.

Earlier, in this case, two accused persons i.e the president and secretary of Vastav India Trust have been arrested and forwarded to court. They are still in jail. Investigation of the case is on.