BHUBANESWAR: The city-based builder, Sagar Ray, was sent on 12-day remand of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) here on Saturday.
A day after his arrest, the probe agency produced Ray before the court of Special Chief Judicial Magistrate, CBI, which heard the arguments of the defence as well as CBI counsel before granting custody of the chit fund accused to the agency.
The CBI counsel said, Ray, a Director of Orisons Group of Companies, had close links with Artha Tatwa (AT) Group which had collected over `400 crore from the investors by floating schemes on low-cost housing projects.
Ray is accused of transferring money from AT Group’s accounts to various companies in which he served as director. Earlier, Vineet Lalani and Dilip Mohanty, both Directors of Orisons Group, were arrested by the CBI.
The CBI sources said, AT Group chief Pradeep Sethy was also a director of Orisons Mining and Minerals Pvt Ltd, a sister concern of Orisons Group. Using the corporate link, investors money was transferred from AT Group so that it could be parked with Orisons Group and misappropriated later.
While CBI has already taken Lalani and Mohanty on remand, Ray’s custody is expected to give the probe agency more evidence about how a big group of realtors had a share in the investors money that Sethy had collected by floating dubious schemes and projects.
If sources are to be believed, more builders of the city could soon end in the CBI net as some of them have already been quizzed in the past. Investigation into the financial affairs of the whole chain of realtors, who had also invested in the inaugural edition of Odisha Premier League (OPL) is also expected to throw more light on the T20 tournament and the role of some of the office-bearers of Odisha Cricket Association.
Apart from Orisons Group, LG Infrastructure Ltd had promoted two teams in the OPL and in both, Ray was the director. Orisons Group promoted Puri Emperors, while LG Infrastructure promoted Bhubaneswar Jaguars. AT Group was the principal sponsor of OPL.
