Issue of ownership: Samaja newspaper employees seek clarification from SoPS on exposures in ORISSA MATTERS

L.P.Pattanayak

ORISSA MATTERS has exposed how the Servants of the People Society (SoPS) has hijacked Utkalmani Pandit Gopabandhu Das’ famous newspaper The Samaja to swindle its fabulous earnings by using a forged Will. It has become clear by the ORISSA MATTERS reports available together at savethesamaja.com that SoPS has no legitimate ownership over the paper.

As the SoPS has never dared to counter the allegation, worried employees of the Samaja through their trade union – Utkalmani Newspaper Employees Association – have attracted attention of the Chairman and members as well as the Trustees of SoPS to this exposure in in their letter No. 15/GS/2014 dated 24.3.2014.

Signed by Devi Prasanna Nayak, President and Subash Chandra Singh, General Secretary of the Union, the letter notes, “Even as the members of our Union are extremely worried over the litigations ffecting Servants of the People Society in internal tussles, we are in deep quagmire over the issue of ownership of the Samaja where we are employees.

“We are giving you the link to a website styles savethesamaja.com, wherein, over and above the publications in orissamatters.com depicting serious exposures and raising serious questions on legitimacy of SoPS as owner of the Samaja are being published/ have been published.

“On behalf of the members of our Union, we request you to please peruse the articles in thia website and come out with a clear picture of the ownership over the Samaja, as otherwise employer-employee relationship being in stake, we the workers are in and bound to be in highly injurious predicament”.

SoPS is yet to answer.