Crime branch officials arrive with CMD of Seashore Group Prasant Das (centre). Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar/Cuttack, June 21: Orissa High Court has refused to spare a sitting judge for the judicial inquiry ordered into the fraudulent activities of deposit collection companies.

Confirming this to The Telegraph today, registrar general of the high court J.P. Das said: “Chief Justice C. Nagappan has declined to nominate a sitting judge for the Commission of Inquiry. The state home department has been communicated accordingly.” The communication was sent yesterday.

After the deposit collection scam hit the state and people took to the streets, chief minister Naveen Patnaik had ordered a judicial probe on May 30. “There will be a judicial inquiry into the chit fund scam and it will be conducted by a sitting judge of Orissa High Court, which has already been requested to recommend a name. The probe will be conducted within three months,” a statement issued by the chief minister’s office had said.

Sources said the high court’s registry during its summer vacation received the request from the state home department. The Chief Justice took the decision after the court reopened on June 17 and turned down the request reportedly on the ground that it was not a matter of national importance.

Legal experts had also questioned the move following announcement of judicial probe by the chief minister. Former law minister and senior Congress leader Narasingh Mishra had said: “In view of the Supreme Court judgment of 2006, which was against sitting judges being appointed on inquiry commissions, the chief minister should not have declared an inquiry by a sitting judge without the prior concurrence of the high court. It appears that the chief minister is in search of an escape route.”

At present, the high court has 15 judges working against a sanctioned strength of 22. In the absence of sanctioned posts of new judges for years the number of cases pending before it has already gone up to over 3.22 lakh.

In yet another development, the Public Accounts Committee, led by its chairman Bhupinder Singh, today inspected office of the registrar co-operative society and asked registrar P.K. Patnaik about how licence was issued to the co-operative societies.

During the inquiry, the committee came to know that around 23 multipurpose co-operative societies had got licence from the registrar office. The societies were active in money circulation business in a big way. But, the registrar office has no information about their areas of operation. “They have no information about seven of these societies,” said committee member Prasad Harichandan.

Singh said: “We asked the registrar to submit an interim report on functioning of the multipurpose co-operative societies within seven days.”

In a related development, a private channel today aired the conversation of Artha Tatwa (AT) chairman Pradeep Sethy with a senior BJD leader associated with the co-operative movement. However, the veracity of the tape is yet to be verified. In yet another conversation, Sethy was heard talking to a leader, who had been suspended from the BJD and joined a newly floated party. Sethy is now behind bars.

The state government has also started a probe into the functioning of 16 multi-state co-operative companies after the Centre had asked it to look into the financial irregularities committed by them.

The state government has repealed the existing Odisha Self-help Co-operative Act-2001 and decided to regularly audit their business transaction either through a panel of independent auditors or through the co-operative department’s auditors. The audit report will be submitted for the government’s appraisal once a year.