Cuttack: In a significant ruling, a special court dealing with ponzi cases Tuesday directed the state government to sell properties of Bhubaneswar-based Land India Real Estate Private Ltd. and Land India Assets Ltd. through public auction. The proceeds from the auction would be distributed among the duped investors, the court said in its judgment.
The court pronounced the order on the basis of Orissa Protection of Interests of Depositors (in financial establishments) Act, 2011.
Special public prosecutor Subrata Mohanty said, “This is the tenth such ruling by the court with regard to cases pertaining to economic offences.”
As per case details, the twin firms lured the investors by floating several real estate schemes and duped them of several crore rupees. However, the firms went back on their promise and shutdown their offices, leaving the investors in the lurch.
Subsequently, the investors lodged complaints with Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch seeking action against the fly-by-night ponzi firms. The EOW registered cases against managing director of the twin firms Braja Sundar Mishra, director Sambit Kumar Mohanty and Laxman Panigrahy in this connection.
The EOW had seized 7.9 acre land whose market value stands at Rs 1,85,81,899 in the state. The crime branch also seized 10 bank accounts of the chit fund firms and seized Rs 8,12,258, leading to seizure of assets worth over Rs 8.33 crore.
The EOW recommended confiscation of the twin firms’ properties and put them under hammer as they had duped investors from across the state by opening several branches. Accordingly, the Finance department had directed Cuttack district additional collector Bibhuti Bhushan Das to file a petition in the special chit fund court to order auction of the properties. The petition was filed in the court September 4, 2015 seeking a direction to the government to distribute the proceeds of the auction of the firms’ properties among the cheated investors.
During the hearing, the state government produced 42 documents in the court. Public prosecutor Das and EOW additional SP Saroj Kumar Rath recorded their statements.
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