The Supreme Court of India
The Supreme Court today asked CBI to expedite its probe and filing of charge sheets in the multi-crore rupee chit-fund scam cases against Seashore group of companies in Odisha.
"CBI shall expedite the investigation and filing of charge sheets where it has not been done," the bench comprising Justices TS Thakur and C Nagappan said.
Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for CBI, said that in 17 cases against the group, the local police had already filed the charge sheets and now the probe agency is looking into 21 other matters.
It was alleged by the investors that there as many as 44 FIRs pending against the group and CBI was not doing the needful.
Disposing of some investors' plea seeking a direction to CBI to take up probe in all 44 scam cases against the group, the bench said that the probe agency is "cognizant" of the facts and would take steps.
Pravat Kumar Dash, the director of the Seashore Group of companies, is in jail in connection with the chit-fund scam. The top court had, on May 9 last year, ordered a CBI probe into the chit fund scam cases in West Bengal, Odisha and Assam allegedly involving various companies including Saradha, while taking note of allegations that scamsters were getting "patronage" of people in "high positions".
Meanwhile, CBI, which has been saying that it lacks manpower to probe a huge number of chit-fund scam cases, today said it has been conducting interviews of personnel provided to it by West Bengal police for keeping them on deputation to probe ponzy scam cases.
CBI had said there was paucity of 754 officers and it was getting difficult for it to carry out the instructions of the court.