The Commissionerate of Police on Sunday submitted chargesheet against Artha Tatwa (AT) Group chief Pradip Sethi and two others in a second case over trading of gold and silver.
Besides Sethi, the Group’s Directors Manoj Patnaik and Srikrushna Padhi have been named in the chargesheet.
They have been charged under Sections 420, 406, 120 (b) of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 3/4/5 of the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978.
The case which was registered by Kharavela Nagar Police Station on May 27 pertains to complaints of cheating by the AT Enterprises Pvt Ltd which was into gold loan, gold and silver trading as well as business in mobile phones and other articles.
The total volume of the cheating was valued at Rs 55 lakh.
This is the second chargesheet against Sethi whose company is accused in multi-hundred crore chit fund and money circulation scam that had snowballed into a raging controversy over alleged involvement of ruling party leaders.
On July 10, police had filed the chargesheet against seven top officials of AT Group in this connection.
The seven persons against whom police had filed chargesheet included AT Group chairman-cum-managing director Sethi and chief executive officer Jhuma Chakraborty.
Directors of the company Patnaik and Padhi too had been named besides Jagabandhu Panda, Md Hanif and head of accounts Mrunmay Siala. The case involved financial bungling to the tune of Rs 6.5 crore.
Despite two chargesheets, the City Police has not so far found any evidence or materials to link AT Group with any political leader though its chief Sethi had claimed to have close nexus with many of them to whom he had allegedly made pay-offs too.
In fact, audio tapes of Sethi’s conversation with others, photographs and other such materials have done rounds in the past but have been glossed over by the investigating agencies.