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After two-year gap, CBI turns focus back on Odisha chit fund scam
The Seashore group reportedly raised around ₹578 crore from gullible people offering 36 per cent interest per annum to the investors on their deposits.
After a two-year pause, the probe into ₹578-crore chit fund scam in Odisha resumed with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) questioning a student leader-turned-fixer who had emerged as a key player in the scam swinging deals on behalf of the Seashore group of companies.
CBI sources said they recently interrogated Subhankar Nayak, a key aide of Seashore Group chief Prashant Dash and alleged conduit between several prominent politicians, IAS and IPS officers. Nayak allegedly helped the businesses of Seashore by building a relationship with top IAS and IPS officers, journalists and senior politicians of the ruling BJD.
Nayak was questioned for ‘certain clarifications’, CBI sources said.
Seashore is one of the 44 companies being probed by the CBI since May 2014 following a Supreme Court order. The company reportedly raised around ₹578 crore from gullible people offering 36 per cent interest per annum to the investors on their deposits.
Nayak was first arrested in 2014 soon after CBI took over the case and the diaries seized from his house allegedly revealed that he had paid off several politicians, IAS and IPS officers on behalf of Seashore. Following the seizure, CBI had interrogated four IPS officers of Odisha between 2014 and 2016. Nayak later got bail from the Orissa High Court in August 2017.
Seashore Group chief Prashant Dash who was also arrested, is now out on bail.
Though opposition BJP and Congress had made an issue of the chit fund scam in 2014 polls, it went off the radar in the 2019 elections.
