Cuttack, April 5: Orissa High Court today directed the CID crime branch of the state police to investigate a multi-crore scam involving alleged cheating of investors by Siridi Sai Estate Private Limited.

The court issued the order on a petition that alleged the defrauding of thousands of people of around Rs 500 crore by luring them into investing for plots and flats in Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Puri.

Laxman Kumar Panda and 27 other investors of Balasore had filed the petition alleging that they were cheated by Siridi Sai Estate Private Limited.

They had lodged FIRs in July last year, but sought direction for a probe by the CID crime branch because the “general police have not been able to trace the whereabouts of the company’s managing director”. “The single judge bench of Justice B.K. Nayak directed the additional director general, CID-crime branch, to take up the grievances of the petitioners,” counsel Subhransu Bhusan Mohanty told The Telegraph.