Chit-fund scam: CBI files charge sheet against Sastra chief

Bhubaneswar: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today submitted the charge sheet against the chief of Sastra Enterprises Pvt Ltd V. Sampath and the company on charges of fraud in a local court here.

Sampath was arrested by the CBI in May 2013 from Chennai and is at present lodged in the Bargarh jail.

Earlier this month, the central investigating agency had conducted simultaneous raids at offices of the Chennai-headquartered company across the country, including in Odisha.

The company had allegedly collected money from gullible investors in Odisha through its branches in Balasore, Bhadrak and Mayurbhanj districts promising lucrative returns and defrauded them of more than Rs 150 crore.

Meanwhile, depositors of another chit-fund company Green India staged a dharna in front of the CBI office here demanding confiscation of the properties of the company, arrest of its other officials and refund of the deposited amount.

Notably, in December 2014, the CBI had filed its first charge sheet against Green India accusing it of defrauding depositors of Rs 30 crore. Green India CEO Pradeep Singh and directors Sunil Panda and Jitendra Mishra were named in the charge sheet submitted in the court.

In a related development, the Chief Judicial Magistrate court here on Wednesday convicted director Binayak Mishra and board member

Gitanjali Panigrahi of chit fund firm Maa Mangala Credit Co-operative Ltd in the money laundering case and sent to jail for five and three

years respectively. Mishra and Panigrahi have to pay penalties of Rs 1 lakh and Rs 50,000 respectively.

Accused in the Rs 12 crore chit fund scam, both were lodged in jail since 2013.