Special court delivers first conviction order in ponzi scam

CUTTACK: Delivering its first conviction order in the ponzi company scam, a designated court here today awarded five years rigorous imprisonment (RI) and slapped a fine of Rs 3 lakh on the managing director of a tainted company for duping over Rs one crore of its investors.

The special court headed by an ADJ-rank judicial officer found Prakash Panda of M/s Siridi Sai Real Estate Pvt. Limited guilty under the Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (in Financial Establishment) Act of 2011 and under several other sections of IPC.

The court also found the company to be also guilty under section 6 of the OPID Act and awarded a further one year RI to its MD and slapped a fine of Rs 2 lakh. In default of the fine, the MD will further undergo RI of another one year.

Convicting Panda under sections 406, 420, 468 and 471 of IPC, the special court also awarded the convict to undergo RI of two years, four years, four years and one year respectively along with separate fines. All the punishments shall run concurrently.

Panda as MD of the company started collecting money from the investors across the state since 2007 and when he failed to pay back the returns to the investors, they approached the high court.

On a direction from high court, the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the state crime branch police arrested Panda in February 2014.

Adjudicating over the case for over one year and examining as many as 17 witnesses in this connection, the designated court in its first judgement convicted Panda, who is behind the bar for the last 33 months.