Cuttack: The Justice Madan Mohan Das Commission, which is identifying small investors duped by dubious financial companies, has submitted an interim report, the fifth in three-and-a-half years, to the state government to decide on the entitlement of investors eligible for compensation.

The single-member panel expected the government to take a decision on payment of compensation to another 1.01 lakh small investors, who had deposited Rs 10,000 or less each. The commission has compiled the list along with amount of compensation payable and modality of payment in the voluminous interim report running to 12,530 pages, sources told The Telegraph.

Justice Das, who took charge of the commission on February 5, 2015 following the death of Justice R.K. Patra on January 28, 2015, submitted another interim report to the state government on Friday. "The fifth interim report was received by state home department's secretary Asit Kumar Tripathy," commission's secretary Devraj Rout said.

The panel submitted the first interim report on May 25, 2016 for payment of compensation to 8,632 small investors. The second interim report was submitted on February 3, 2017 for payment of compensation to 10,790 small investors, followed by a third one for payment to 41,519 small investors on July 25, 2017. The fourth report, submitted on January 15, had recommended the names of 55,563 small investors for compensation.

With the submission of the fifth report, the number of small investors identified and recommended as eligible for compensation has gone up to 2,18,354. The interim reports had named around 400 dubious financial companies in the five reports for duping small investors, official sources said.

"While proceeding with identification of small investors, the commission had persuaded some of the sham companies to return the invested amount, and 1,485 investors had so far been paid back their money by the firms," Rout said.

The commission has been identifying small investors, who had deposited Rs 10,000 or less from among the 8.17 lakh affidavits received by it.

Official sources said scrutiny of 5.93 lakh affidavits had been completed so far. While the four interim reports on eligible small investors were submitted from 3.41 lakh affidavits examined in phases, the fifth interim report picked up investors from the rest 2.52 lakh affidavits.

The term of the commission had been extended on three months interval. But, its term was last extended on February 5 by six months till August 4. When constituted on July 9, 2013, Justice R.K. Patra was appointed as its head.