Artha Tatwa Ponzi Scam: Orissa HC dismisses former AG Ashok Mohanty's revision petition

In a huge setback, the Orissa High Court has dismissed the revision petition filed by Ashok Mohanty, former Advocate General of Odisha, in connection with the 2014 Artha Tatwa chit fund scam case.

The single judge bench of Justice SK Sahoo held that "it could not be said that the accusation levelled against the former AG by the prosecution, particularly for the commission of offences under sections 120-B, 409, 468 and 471 IPC were groundless and that there were no sufficient grounds for proceeding against him for such offences".

Seeking his exclusion from the chit fund case, Mohanty had filed the revision petition before the high court under Section 401 CrPC to set aside the order dated 27.06.2018 passed by the Special C.J.M. (C.B.I), Bhubaneswar rejecting his plea under section 239 of Cr.P.C. for discharge and posting the case for consideration of charge.

In September, on a petition filed by the Center contending that the matter is pending before the high court since 2018, and further proceedings before the Special Court were accordingly held up, the Supreme Court had requested the High Court to consider and dispose of the petition in an expeditious manner.

Accordingly, the matter was taken up for hearing by the Orissa High Court on September 20 and the court passed the present order on October 26.

In 2014, a First Information Report was filed against Artha Tatwa (AT) Group of Companies on the basis of the First Information Reports of eight cases instituted in different police stations of the State.

The allegations against the company were that the company duped the investors/depositors through various schemes including cheap flats/plots under various projects. When the company failed to refund the amount due to the investors/depositors as neither it could construct the flats nor sell the plots as per the agreements, its Chief Managing Director Pradeep Kumar Sethy and other directors closed down the branch offices as well as the head office of the company and fled away.

During the investigations, it was found that Mohanty, who was the Advocate General of Odisha during the period from June 2009 to September 2014, had purchased a building from the accused Pradeep Kumar Sethy.

Allegedly, Sethy had purchased the said building from one of the judges of the Orissa High Court for consideration of rupees one crore out of the money flown from the accounts of the company and later, transferred the said plot to Mohanty. Though the sale transaction was shown to be of rupees one crore one lakh, in fact, only rupees seventy lakhs was paid by Mohanty to Sethy.

It was alleged that in conspiracy with Sethy, Mohanty had misappropriated the remaining amount of rupees thirty-one lakhs which he was supposed to pay to Sethy.

Dismissing Mohanty's plea, the high court bench observed, "There are prima facie materials on record to show how forged signatures of accused Pradeep Kumar Sethy and an advocate and even the Executive Magistrate were made in creating documents and utilised in connection with transfer of the property in the name of the petitioner. The report of C.F.S.L. expert also lends corroboration to the same. Therefore, there is no dearth of material to prima facie constitute the ingredients of such offences".

Court held that in view of the material on record, there had been a wrongful gain of Rs 31 lakhs to Mohanty. Therefore, on a careful scrutiny of the materials on record, the court held that the criminal revision petition was devoid of merit. Accordingly, the court dismissed the same.

Also, noting that the case was of 2014, court vacated the stay order dated 14.08.2018 which was extended from time to time and asked the trial court to expedite the framing of charges if there are no other impediments.

Case Title: Asok @ Ashok Mohanty v. Republic of India