BHUBANESWAR: While the ruling BJD has adopted all means to stall the proceedings of the winter session of the Assembly to avoid a debate on chit fund and land scams, the State Government on Wednesday virtually admitted that it facilitated the massive loot of money of poor people.
The Government said Artha Tatwa Group CMD Pradip Sethy was conferred with “Best Youth Cooperator” award in 2010 barely 17 days after the registration of his Artha Tatwa Multi-purpose Cooperative Society with the Registrar of Co-operative Societies.
“The Multi-purpose Cooperative Society was registered with the Registrar of Co-operative Societies, Bhubaneswar on November 3, 2010 and Sethy was awarded the Best Youth Cooperator on November 20 by the Odisha State Cooperative Union,” Cooperation Minister Damodar Rout said in a written reply to a question by BJP member Dilip Ray in the Assembly.
Admitting that he was also present at the function as the then Minister of Cooperation, Rout said BJD MLA Pravat Kumar Tripathy was the president of the State Cooperative Union. The function was also attended by the then Governor M C Bhandare and then president of Odisha State Cooperative Bank Jagneswar Babu among others.
Since all the records of the State Cooperative Union have been seized by the CBI, it was not possible to find out as to when Sethy applied for registration of the AT Multi-purpose Cooperative Society (MPCS) as a primary cooperative society and what contribution he had made for cooperative movement in the State, Rout said.
The CBI had interrogated Tripathy in connection with a non-banking financial institution winning the Best Co-operator Award. The BJD MLA from Banki, who is under judicial custody, was arrested by the CBI on charges of criminal conspiracy and for allegedly taking money form the AT Group CMD. Sethy has also been in jail for more than a year.
According to CBI sources, Tripathy, as the president of the State Cooperative Union, had pressurised the officials to expedite registration of Sethy’s Artha Tatwa Multipurpose Cooperative Society.