Chit fund scam: Chhattisgarh mulls plan for the return of investors’ money

RAIPUR: At a time when the West Bengal’s chit fund scam has triggered a political row, Chhattisgarh’s Congress government is considering setting up of special court, formulating a plan to ensure return of about Rs 1105 crore to investors, who were duped by unscrupulous chit fund companies during the previous BJP regime and to withdraw cases registered against chit fund agents. Briefing reporters after a meeting of the state cabinet presided over by chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, legislative affairs minister Ravindra Choubey said the cabinet has discussed the situation arising out of fly-by-night chit fund companies duping more than Rd 115 crore from about 2.70 lakh investors. He said Congress in its election manifesto has also promised to return investors’ money and to bring chit fund company directors to book. Pointing out that many local youths, who worked as agents of these chit fund companies, were arrested after the chit fund companies duped their investors, he said 286 such agents were arrested and charge-sheets were filed in 263 cases out of the total 424 cases registered. He said 199 cases have been registered against such chit fund companies.“The cabinet has discussed the issue of withdrawal of cases against agents and other aspects pertaining to the matter,” he said, adding, the government would announce on the floor of the Vidhan Sabha its decisions regarding the chit fund scam during the on-going budget session resuming on February eight. While in opposition, Congress had accused the BJP government of shielding these dubious chit fund firms pointing out that senior government functionaries, including ministers, had attended programmes organised by these chit fund companies through job fairs. Since the invitations for these programmes and job fairs were given on behalf of the then government and presence of ministers and bureaucrats at these functions gave an impression that the government had the partnership with these companies and accordingly people invested their money. Ahead of the November assembly polls, Congress had also released the list of chief guests along with invitation letters for job fairs of chit fund companies. Besides, Congress had also mentioned that some chit fund offices, which were sealed after complaints, were later re-opened on reports of tehsildars and station house offices (SHOs) of police—despite there was a ban imposed by SEBI and central government during the period between 2009 and 2014. In 2016, the issue of fraud by chit fund companies had echoed in the state assembly when the then opposition Congress had pointed out that chief minister and ministers had even inaugurated offices of chit fund companies had resulted in fraud of such intensity as people saw them and invested their hard earned money with these companies.x