Orissa chit fund scam: Senior BJD MLA gets bail

Senior BJD MLA Pravat Tripathy, who has been in jail since October last year over his involvement in the Artha Tatwa chit fund scam, was granted bail by Orissa High Court on Tuesday. He is the first politician to get bail in the scam.

Tripathy was arrested on October 31 by the CBI on charges of hatching a criminal conspiracy with chit fund group Artha Tatwa. In its chargesheet, the CBI had alleged that the BJD MLA had taken Rs 42 lakh from Artha Tatwa chief Pradeep Sethy in return for the patronage. Soon after his arrest, BJD chief Naveen Patnaik had suspended Tripathy from the party.

Tripathy during his tenure as president of Orissa State Cooperative Union, a government-sponsored apex cooperative society, had recommended Sethy’s name for the award of “Best Youth Cooperative Person” in 2010. Sethy got the award within a fortnight of he starting the Artha Tatwa Multipurpose Cooperative Society. The award helped Sethy collect money from unsuspecting investors.