Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Nov 30:

The Odisha government’s Finance department today ordered for ad-interim attachment of properties including land, building and bank accounts of Hi-Tech Group of Companies in connection with the land scam case against it.

The attached properties include the corporate office of Hi-Tech Estates & Promoters Pvt. Ltd located at Saheed Nagar, land in different projects of the company and Hi-Tech Medical College to the extent of more than 146 acres and 53 bank accounts with deposits over Rs 1 crore.

It is estimated that current market value of the attached properties shall run into a few crores.

It may be recalled here that the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch had registered five cases against Tirupati Panigrahi, Tirupati Choudhury, and Madhusudan Panigrahi, respectively the Managing Director and Directors of Hi-Tech Group of Companies for cheating large number of innocent depositors by making false promises of providing plots under various schemes in and around Bhubaneswar.

These accused persons were arrested in December 2012 and continued to be in jail custody till February 2014, when they were released on orders of the Supreme Court. The accused persons deposited over Rs 63 crore with the Supreme Court’s Registry as the guarantee for the bail.

The apex court subsequently transferred the aforesaid amount to the Designated Court, Cuttack constituted under the Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (OPID) Act.

The Finance department’s order said that with the attachment of properties of Hi-Tech Group of Companies and availability of over Rs 63 crore proceeding shall commence shortly for making the ad-interim attachment order absolute and for proportionate distribution of money to the cheated depositors under the orders of the Designated Court.

The EOW had written to the Finance department for attachment of these properties.