Cuttack: A special chit fund court here Tuesday awarded seven years jail term to Sri Bhumi Group of Companies managing director (MD) Subhranshu Singh after convicting him in Rs 4.34-crore ponzi scam. The court has slapped a penalty of Rs 1 lakh on Singh. Singh would undergo an additional 20 months of imprisonment in case of non-payment of the penalty, the court ruled.
Sources said apart from its head office at Jaydev Vihar in Bhubaneswar, the tainted firm through its offices in several parts of the state had collected around Rs 4, 34, 28, 783 from depositors as recurring and fixed deposits after promising them of double returns in 25 months. In an attempt to take the depositors into confidence, the firm had even repaid some of the depositors.
However, the fraud came to
the light after the firm failed to repay the depositors after September 2012. The dubious firm then shut its offices.
Left with no option, a few of the depositors approached the Crime Branch (CB). On the basis of a complaint of Nirmal Kumar Jesti, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the state CB registered a case (1/2015) under Sections 467, 468, 471, 420, 406 and 120B of IPC and Section 6 of the Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (in Financial Establishments) Act, 2011. The court ruling came after taking into account the statements of at least 13 witnesses, including deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Sriram Sahu who was the investigating officer of the case. The tainted company’s CMD is on the run.
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