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Bhubaneswar, Dec 15: The CBI, which had filed a preliminary charge sheet in the AT Group case last Thursday, charged Banki MLA Pravat Tripathy with receiving `42 lakh from the company.
Besides, it was also alleged that former Advocate General Ashok Mohanty helped Tripathy get interim relief when the former moved the Orissa High Court for anticipatory bail.
The 233-page charge sheet (9/2014) charged Tripathy guilty under sections 120-B, 406, 409, 411, 420, 468, 471 of IPC and sections 4, 5 and 6 of the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978.
Tripathy, during his tenure as president of the Orissa State Cooperative Union from 2008 to 2011, had used his influence over assistant registrar of societies to register ‘Artha Tatwa Multi-Purpose Cooperative Society Limited’ at short notice, the charge sheet said.
He also used his influence to nominate Sethy for the Best Youth Cooperator Award instituted by the society without his making any contribution to this field, within 15 days of Artha Tatwa Multipurpose Cooperative Society Limited was registered.
Sethy, the charge sheet said, used the award to gain the confidence of investors to lure them into parking money with the AT group.
This was evident from the statements of duped investors that they were encouraged to invest money after showing them the photographs of Sethy receiving the Best Youth Cooperator Award, the charge sheet said.
A taped conversation between Sethy and Tripathy was found to be genuine after a test at the CBI’s Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), the charge sheet added.
