**Bhubaneswar**: Chit fund convicts first pleaded guilty then sentenced to 3-4 years in jail by courts and finally they will be freed but what about the duped depositors who are still counting days to get their hard-earned money.
This month, two heads of the chit fund firms who had jointly duped depositors over Rs 1000 crore were convicted and sentenced three years in jail besides directed to pay compensation.
Durga Prasad Mishra, Chief Managing Director (CMD) of Micro Finance Ltd (MFL), was sentenced to 3 years in jail on Tuesday 4 on charges of duping investors to the tune of Rs 400 crore.
Earlier in the month, MFL Managing Director (MD) of the same company Ashok Patnaik was awarded three and half years of jail and asked to pay Rs 105 crore as compensation.
Similarly, a special CBI court in Bhubaneswar on April 06, had sentenced chit fund firm Artha Tatwa (AT) Group’s chief Pradip Sethy to 7-year imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to defrauding investors of their money.
Among the convicts, some are likely to be freed from the jail after a few months and will live a normal life.
So, all the big fishes in the multi-crore chit fund scam are now cooling their heels behind bars and will come out open after end of the jail term.
Meanwhile, lawyers, intellectuals and senior journalists raised question on the functioning of the CBI and seriousness of the State Government in providing justice to the depositors.
“The convicts will be freed after end of their jail terms but it wouldn’t help the people as they are unlikely to be benefitted out of this. The CBI should keep depositors’ demand in mind and the State Government must attach their properties,” said Siddarth Das, a lawyer.
Thousands of depositors who had invested their money in such companies are yet to be identified by the State Government which added to their woes.
“The CBI and the State Government has a tacit understanding as the latter has not yet identified the duped depositors. It seems, it will take around more than 10 years complete the whole process,” senior journalist and Chit Fund victims’ chief advisor Rabi Das claimed.