Bhubaneswar, Nov. 1: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today submitted its charge sheet against former youth Congress president Rajat Choudhury who was earlier arrested for his alleged links with Artha Tatwa group. This is the fourth charge sheet submitted by the CBI against the group.
Choudhury, who held the power of attorney of a land on behalf of the Artha Tatwa group on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, had entered into an agreement with Dilip Mohanty, another accused arrested by the CBI in November 2014 in connection with the money laundering scam.
Mohanty was supposed to pay around Rs 94 lakh to the Artha Tatwa group. The CBI investigation later revealed that Mohanty obtained the plot with the help of Choudhury without paying the consideration amount to the Artha Tatwa group.
The central investigating agency also named former director of Artha Tatwa group Md Haniff in the charge sheet.
The group has allegedly swindled Rs 1,200 crore from thousands of investors across the state. The company, which took off in 2010, collected huge investments from people across the state belonging to middle and low income groups by promising them annual returns as high as 15 per cent to 20 per cent.
In February, 2013, a few duped investors had first lodged a case against the group. Subsequently, other duped investors also mustered courage and lodged complaints against Artha Tatwa group and its chief Pradeep Sethy. Several office bearers of the company, including Sethy, are lodged in the jail.
The CBI has so far seized movable and immovable properties worth Rs 200 crore of the Ponzi firm, which included land, flats and luxury cars. The police, which was earlier investigating financial irregularities committed by the fraudulent company, had also frozen over 200 bank accounts of the company in 12 nationalised banks.
Investigating agencies have also seized original sale deeds of 230 acres of land owned by the group in Bhubaneswar, Jatni, Khurda, Balasore, Remuna, Angul, Pipli and Tangi.
During his court production on March 18, Sethy had sparked a controversy after he told newspersons that he was yet to receive some of the vehicles given to some people during general elections in 2014. Sethy had told that he was requested by some political leaders to lend them vehicles for election campaigning and few of them did not return the vehicles.