BHUBANESWAR: Armed with new evidence after back-to-back raids in the chit fund scam, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday secured 10-day remand of Artha Tatwa (AT) Group chief Pradip Sethi.
Sethi was produced before the Special Chief Judicial Magistrate (CBI) on Monday as the court heard the counsels of both the sides and decided in favour of allowing the investigating agency to take Sethi on remand for 10 days against the request for 14 days.
The CBI also produced Srikrushna Padhy, a chief accountant with AT Group, before the court seeking his remand and the plea was accepted.
Sethi, who claimed to having links with political leaders during his arrest last year, reiterated his stand in the court.
He said he had given details to the police but no action was taken.
Talking to reporters, he alleged that he had given Commissionerate Police evidence against Sambit Khuntia, another director, but the latter did not arrest him. Khuntia was arrested from Khurda town by the CBI during recent raids.
Similarly, Jyotiprakash Jaiprakash, founding director of the group, was also allowed to get away by the police, he said. He also alleged that his accounts may have been manipulated after his arrest.
Sethi’s remand could be crucial for the CBI to stitch the links in the case since the investigating agency has already made important inroads into the scam by bringing to the fore possible nexus of political leaders.
It was BJD’s Banki MLA Pravat Tripathy who first came under the scanner in the case after his premises were searched. Soon after, his close aide Subash Padhy was also raided. Padhi’s role came under the scanner as he was a key member of the Banki Mahotsav Committee and an audio tape had done the rounds last year in which a man, purported to be Tripathy, was seeking funds for Banki festival from Sethi. Another founder member of AT Group, Ranjan Das, was also detained by the CBI in this connection.
Last week, the CBI seized 31 hard disks and important documents from the office of AT Group at Kharavel Nagar. With Sethi in custody, the probe agency is expected to confront him with the evidence and elicit new leads. Sethi, on his part, has said he is more than willing to share information with the CBI.
