Orissa: Newspaper owner, chit fund firm chief held

The CBI arrested the owner of an Odia daily and the head of a chit fund firm, who was a backroom operator in the state cooperative department, on Friday while investigating a multi-crore chit fund scam.

After days of interrogation, CBI sleuths arrested Bikash Kumar Swain, owner of daily Suryaprava and Ranjan Das, owner of chit fund company Swastik India Multi-State Cooperative Society. Both Swain and Das had substantial business transactions with the Artha Tatwa Group, a prominent chit fund firm that swindled hundreds of crores from unsuspecting investors. Incidentally in 2009, the then CBI director Ashwini Kumar had flown to Bhubaneswar to launch Swain’s newspaper. Swain had employed former CBI director Uma Shankar Mishra as its editor at a salary of Rs 40,000 per month.

Similarly, Das, whose Swastik India Multi State Cooperative Society raised money from the public through fixed deposit scheme, recurring deposit scheme, retirement scheme and regular income schemes, was an important man in the state cooperative department. Last year, his name was recommended to become a member of the Orissa State Cooperative Council, a government body which makes policy decisions in the state’s cooperative sector.

The arrest of Swain and Das came after interrogated Pradip Sethy, chief of Aartha Tatwa group. During interrogation by CBI officials, Das said that he had paid kickbacks to some influential people in the state government. He also revealed that several politicians, bureaucrats and journalists were beneficiaries of his company.