Balasore: A special chit fund court here handed Tuesday seven years imprisonment separately to two persons and three years of imprisonment each to two others after convicting them in a ponzi case. Judge Biswajit Dash concluded the hearing and pronounced the verdict, as per a Supreme Court order which had directed to conclude the hearing in the case by 2022. Those who got prison terms of seven years each are chief manager of ‘Shashtra Enterprises’ (formerly Smart Gain) V Sampad, a resident of Tamil Nadu and B Mallikarjun Raju belonging to Andhra Pradesh. The latter was a member in the board of directors of the company. The judge also slapped a penalty of Rs 4.21 lakh on them. The court passed the order after examining the statements recorded by 57 witnesses and 79 documents.
Special Public Prosecutor Pranab Kumar Panda pleaded the matter on behalf of the Odisha government. The court also sentenced Sadashiv Nayak and Tapan Kumar Barik of Mayurbhanj district to three years in prison. They were also slapped with fines of Rs 60,000 each. As per the case diary, the convicts opened a firm called ‘Smart Gain’ on the top floor of Kuntala Bhawan on Baripada Station Road, August 2009.
Later, the firm was renamed as ‘Shashtra Enterprises Ltd’ in October 2009. The agents appointed by the firm were asked to procure money from people living in Mayurbhanj district by offering them lucrative interest rates and other profitable schemes. The agents collected Rs 4.83 lakhs from 1,357 people in Mayurbhanj district and Rs 21,93,000 from 10,327 persons residing in other districts of Odisha.
However, the company failed to return the money to people on time as promised. Depositor Khirod Chandra Barik, a resident of Ward No-20 in Baripada town lodged a complaint against the chief manager and one of the board of directors at the Baripada Town Police station, November 2, 2010. Baripada Town police registered a case and launched an investigation.
However, the matter was then handed over May 11, 2011 to the Crime Branch to investigate following which the arrests were made.