Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
More heads to roll to save the skin of the Chief Minister. But, all the offenders need be punished.
As on now, Sri Asok Mohanty has quitted the post of Advocate General and has been made to face the ongoing CBI investigations.
He had appeared in these pages for the first time when I had exposed his position in a triangle of land scam where he as well as Justice Laxmikant Mohapatra and the chit fund cheat Pradeep Sethy had formed the vertices.
This exposure was captioned: Judicial Enquiry Essential to determine if Justice Laxmikanta Mohapatra did not act a conduit for a chit fund mafia.
Sri Mohanty is maintaining that he has not benefitted from chit fund fraud; but has purchased the house from the chit fund operator by paying Rs.1.1 crore. I hope, investigation would reveal what happened to State’s dues of Court Fee when his transaction with Pradeep Sethy was complete before “execution of the lease deed” as discussed in this exposure.
Now it is time for the CBI to bring Justice Mohapatra into its investigations. Modus operandi of fraud cannot be fathomed unless Justice Mohapatra is subjected to the ongoing investigation by CBI.
Pradeep Sethy, it seems, was operating from a position bulwarked by jurists, journalists, sleuths and shrewd politicians.
When some of the ruling party heavyweights such as Pravat Tripathy known for being very close to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik are under CBI scanner in course of investigation into Sethy’s offenses, our breaking observation in ORISSA MATTERS has brought to focus why should a former director of CBI Sri Uma Shankar Mishra be investigated into by the CBI over his connection with a declared beneficiary of Sethy’s chit fund frauds.
We have already discussed Justice Laxmikant Mohapatra of Orissa High Court as he then was and Asok Mohanty in his avatar of Advocate General of Orissa in matter of their dubious business with Sethy in these pages.
Now when we look at his connection with Press, we shudder, as we find Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in official patronage to an organization purportedly of media persons, styled as ‘The Press Club of Odisha’ under the banner of which beneficiaries of forgery and chit fund fraud pose as epitomes of Press.
When the founder of this Press Club, Madhu Sudan Mohanty has been repeatedly grilled by CBI in matter of Chit fund fraud, the Chief Minister is aware of the fact that a chairman of this club Deepak Malaviya is a beneficiary of the forgery on Gopabandhu’s Will.
Knowing that Malavya is one of the persons who use a forged Will of Pt. Gopabandhu in keeping the daily Samaja under illicit occupation, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has given the Club a big government bungalow by sheer misuse of his prerogative under his influence. The CMO finding its refuge in the pages of the Samaja in matter of public grievance to hoodwink the people when the CM never attends his ‘grievance-cell’ , is of tremendous significance in the present context.
Both Malavya and Mohanty were marked as the most active elements in foundation of the said Press Club, which deserves investigation into whether or not, under the smoke screen of the Press Club of Odisha, chit fund swindler Pradeep Sethy had been safeguarding his empire by using the Press from the smaller daily Odisha Bhaskara to major daily ‘The Samaja’, ‘birds of the same feathers fly together’ being the axiom.
The issue is most intricate. In no other instance of offense, so far in Orissa, entanglement was so pervasive from politicians in power to Press under fraudsters and from directors of CBI to top jurists in the Bench and the Bar.
So, the investigating agency shall have to act with diligence and determination.
The era of loot shall have to end.
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