Pravat Tripathy

Bhubaneswar, Dec. 2: The CBI today filed a preliminary chargesheet against Green India Private Limited, one of the 44 money deposit collection companies being investigated by the investigating agency following a Supreme Court directive.

The 188-page charge sheet against the company’s chief executive officer Pradeep Singh and directors Sunil Panda and Jitendra Mishra also mentions around 300 persons as witnesses. Though it was alleged that the company had cheated investors to the tune of Rs 100 crore, the charge sheet mentions a fraud worth Rs 30 crore.

A CBI official said this was the preliminary charge sheet and another supplementary charge sheet would be filed after investigation was over complete.

“After completion of the investigation, the total amount of fraud may go up,” he said.

The company had taken crores of rupees from investors through its four subsidiaries — Green India Properties Pvt Ltd, Green India Infra Projects Pvt Ltd, Green India Retail Pvt Ltd and Green India Multi-state Co-operative Pvt Ltd.

While the central agency had raided 20 locations, including the residences of Singh and Panda in Berhampur on August 7, another director of the group was also arrested by police and is on bail.

During the raids, the CBI had seized a number of documents, along with a cash of Rs 10 lakh. Though both Singh and Panda had allegedly been on the run for six months, the CBI arrested both of them in August.

In a related development, Khurda district and sessions court completed the hearing of bail plea of the BJD’s Banki MLA Pravat Tripathy and reserved the verdict for December 8. The CBI had arrested Tripathy for his alleged link with the Artha Tatwa Group, which has allegedly cheated thousands of investors.

The court also rejected the bail plea of 31-year-old Subhankar Nayak, a broker who used to be a conduit between money deposit collection companies and ministers and bureaucrats.

The CBI had seized Rs 14.63 lakh and two gold biscuits weighing 50 grams each from his house during the raid on November 18. Yesterday, he was sent to judicial custody by the court after the CBI remand was over.

However, based on Nayak’s diary, the CBI had already questioned two senior IPS officers — DIG of north-central range Rajesh Kumar and Kendrapara SP Sathish Gajbhiye. Gajbhiye today claimed that he had no relations with Seashore and Nayak.