Cuttack, Dec. 23: Former MP Kharabela Swain has moved Orissa High Court for quashing of the creation of a corpus fund of Rs 300 crore by the state government for distribution among investors duped by sham deposit collection companies.
Swain, in his PIL, alleged that creation of the fund was in contravention of the Odisha Protection of Interest of Depositors (in Financial Establishment) Act provisions. The state government had enforced the act from September 23 last year. The petition came up for hearing today.
The division bench of Chief Justice Amitava Roy and Justice A.K. Rath adjourned the matter for hearing after the winter vacation along with details on the rules framed under the act. The adjournment order was issued after Swain's counsel Kshirod Rout had sought direction to the state government to return money of the investors by auctioning or selling their movable and immovable properties from the guilty companies.
The government had issued a notification on creation of the fund on October 20. On November 20, finance minister Pradip Kumar Amat announced that the state was keeping aside Rs 300 crore as part of a corpus fund to protect the depositors' interest in the supplementary budget for 2014-15.
Later, additional chief secretary (finance) U.N. Behera said the government would make guidelines to return money to the small and genuine investors based on suggestions of the judicial commission, headed by Justice R.K. Patra, after preparation of the database for the purpose.
Swain, who filed the petition, along with social activist Shaikh Kamiluddin Ahemad, challenged the fund creation, calling it 'illegal', 'arbitrary' and 'mis-utilisation and distribution of public money'.
'The Bengal government had also declared to set up a corpus fund to pay investors by imposing additional taxation on cigarettes. But, the government of Odisha, instead of collecting funds from other sources, is going to wrongfully utilise the tax-payers money,' the petition contends.
'The state government notified to form a corpus fund out of public revenue without any rhyme and reason to divert the attention from the mega deposit collection scam,' the petition has alleged.
