Bhubaneswar/Cuttack, Aug. 22: The Justice R.K. Patra Commission probing into the deposit scam in the state will accept affidavits from aggrieved people till September 18.

Instead of using judicial papers, people can file their affidavits in plain paper and by fixing an adhesive stamp worth Rs 3. The paper needs to be certified by a notary public and not a magistrate as was being done.

This was decided by the commission, which has received 25,000 affidavits so far. At present, affidavits were being filed in non-judicial stamp papers worth Rs 10 and Rs 20.

The Congress and the BJP today demanded a white paper on the fraud committed by deposit collection companies in the state. The two parties accused the ruling BJD having a nexus with sham companies.

During the zero hour today, Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh said he had written to chief minister Naveen Patnaik to place a white paper in the Assembly, but he had ignored it.

“This reflects the apathy of the government towards small investors who had lost their hard earned money to dubious companies,” he said.

Singh said there were no proper figures about the number of companies involved, number of people duped and even the amount swindled by these sham companies. The people must know about the magnitude of the scam, he said.

Accusing the state government of protecting the sham companies, the Opposition parties urged for Speaker’s direction to place the white paper. The Congress members rushed to the well of the House shouting slogans. The BJP members too supported the demand and its leader K.V. Singh Deo said a white paper would help discussion in the House.

Ruling BJD member Ranendra Pratap Swain said the scam by the deposit companies did not take place only in Odisha. They were operating in other states, including Bengal.

“The people had invested money out of greed to get their investment doubled. The money deposited in these companies should not be refunded,” he said. This triggered noisy protests from the Opposition bench and the Speaker had to adjourn the House for 30 minutes.

In a related development, the commission has rescheduled its inquiry process as a large number of victims had filed affidavits. The commission has now decided to extend the last date of submission of affidavits to September 18.

While more than 25,000 affidavits have been received so far, nearly 10,000 affidavits were received on Wednesday.

Earlier, the commission had sought information within August 31 from persons having knowledge about “unauthorised collection of public deposits in the state”.

“From the quantum increase in the number of affidavits received in the past four days, it is evident that people interested to file affidavits are slowly becoming aware of the commission’s public notice. Many are apparently still not aware of the public notice. Taking note of it, the commission has decided to extend the last date of submission to September 18,” Justice Patra told The Telegraph today.

“The date fixed for the first sitting (September 6) of the Commission has been accordingly postponed. It will be fixed taking into consideration the affidavits received by September 18,” he said.