Cuttack, April 24: Orissa High Court today granted conditional bail to the owner of a vernacular newspaper, Madhusudan Mohanty, who has been in jail for around 940 days for his alleged involvement with money deposit conglomerate Artha Tatwa (AT).

The single-judge bench of Justice S.K. Mishra granted the bail on furnishing two guarantors of Rs 25 lakh each.

Justice Mishra, however, while imposing stringent condition, directed Mohanty to pay Rs 1.9 crore as bank deposit.

The court expected the amount to be deposited in four bi-monthly instalments starting with the first instalment by April 30. Mohanty is the owner of an Odia daily.

The other conditions imposed for bail included - the accused should not leave Odisha without the court's permission, he should surrender his passport before the trial court and appear before the investigating officer as and when necessary. The accused should not further tamper with evidence and try to influence any witness.

The CBI had submitted a charge sheet indicating that Mohanty was the managing director of M/S Tilakraj Publications Pvt Ltd, to whose accounts Rs 60,42,500 was illegally diverted from the accounts of AT Group.

He had also collected Rs 33,84,000 through his employees from Pradeep Kumar Sethy, a prime accused in the deposit collection scam in the state.

Justice Mishra had rejected Mohanty's bail plea on December 12, 2014, taking note that he had been named a co-accused in the charge sheet CBI had filed against AT Group head Pradeep Sethy. The court, while rejecting the bail application in the greater and larger interest of the state and society, had observed: "The involvement of the co-accused in the commission of offence is prima facie made out and if he is released on bail then there is every possibility of gaining over witnesses."

The high court had later rejected Mohanty's bail application on March 28 last year on similar grounds.