SFIO officials quiz AT Group chief, directors

BHUBANESWAR: A five-member team of Serious Fraud Investigation Office ( SFIO) today interrogated the chief of Artha Tatwa (AT) group, a chit fund company, for allegedly duping about Rs 400 crore from investors in Odisha.

The interrogation was held the special jail here at Jharpada where AT group chief Pradeep Sethy and his four other associates are lodged, SFIO additional director Manoj Kumar Sahoo said.

The four associates -- Manoj Patnaik, Jyotiprakash Jayprakash, Srikrushna Padhi and Deepak Parekh -- are directors of the company and all the five key persons of AT Group were interrogated.

"The investigation is going on and it will take another 3-4 days," Sahoo told reporters here but refused to divulge details about information got from Sethy and his associates.

SFIO, he said, has been looking into which rules under the Companies Act have been violated by AT group.

Sethy had earlier alleged that two ministers in the ruling BJD had taken chit fund money from him.

The SFIO investigation was being conducted on the order of the special CBI designated court in Bhubaneswar.

The court had ordered SFIO to interrogate AT Group's chairman and directors and submit the report within a month.