Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Dec 13: The Central Bureau of Investigation Saturday grilled retired IAS officer P K Hota who was a former additional secretary in the Agriculture department and managing director of APICOL (Agricultural Promotion and Investment Corporation of Orissa Ltd) in connection with his alleged links with the Seashore Group of companies.
The CBI sleuths grilled Hota for over four hours at the CBI headquarters here. They also interrogated Hota’s son Debasish Hota, who had worked with the Seashore Tours and Travels, a Seashore Group unit, as a manager between 2009 and 2010.
Hota and Debasish reported themselves before the CBI sleuths here at around 9.30am and left the office at 2. 30pm.
“I was called by the CBI over phone to appear before them. I have answered all their questions,” Hota said emerging from his four-hour-long interrogation by the CBI officials.
The Central agency had raided Hota’s residences in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack November 19.
Earlier, the agency had also raided the house of Rajya Sabha member Pyarimohan Mohapatra who had told the media that his relationship with Seashore Group chief Prasant Dash was limited to facilitating the signing of an MoU (2010) between the Seashore Group and the state-owned APICOL for establishing a maize processing unit in Nabarangpur district and for marketing chilly in Sambalpur.
Meanwhile, the CBI has started preparing the second charge-sheet in the Artha Tatwa Group case, according to informed sources.
There are a few more people who may be summoned by the central agency in connection with the AT Group scam, claimed the sources.
However, it is not yet clear which of the 44 ponzi companies may be investigated next by the central agency.