Bhubaneswar/New Delhi, Sep 18: The CBI on Friday conducted searches at eight locations, including the residences of ruling BJD MLA and former Odisha tourism minister Debi Prasad Mishra and others, in connection with its probe into the about Rs 1,000-crore ponzi scam allegedly involving Seashore Group of Companies, officials said. Apart from Mishra’s official residence in Bhubaneswar, the CBI teams also swooped on his residences in Cuttack, and company and residential premises of his brother Bishnu Prasad Mishra and former Director of Tourism Rabi Narayan Nanda.
The agency also raided premises of Prasanta Kumar Patnaik, the Director of Swagatika Impex Pvt Ltd, in Thane (West) in Maharashtra. The ruling BJD saw politics behind the action by CBI and said such raids always happen before elections.
“A pattern has been seen that the CBI starts conducting searches, raids and issues notices just before by- elections, General Elections and Panchayat elections,” BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty told reporters. Political parties in the state are now preparing for the by-polls for two assembly constituencies – Tirtol and Balasore.
Senior Congress MLA Taraprasad Bahinipati said, “The BJD and the BJP are working in tandem. These CBI raids are being conducted to make people think that that they are opposed to each other. But they are one.” The BJP, however, said that the CBI raids have nothing to do with by-elections. “Those who have grabbed peoples’ money will face such actions,” BJP leader P Harichandan said.
CBI officials, on the other hand, said the agency had booked Seashore Group of Companies in its FIR combining all 23 cases against it. The agency had filed a number of charge sheets in connection with the scam. They said the searches were part of further investigation to unearth “larger conspiracy” according to the directions of the Supreme Court, they said.
Mishra, also a vice-president of the BJD headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, found himself embroiled in the controversy as the Seashore Group was awarded the Mahanadi Boating Project when he was the tourism minister, sources said. The state government had signed an agreement with Seashore Group for a water sports complex with a restaurant in Cuttack and allowed the company to manage a state-run guest house in Khurda in 2008-09 during Mishra’s tenure as the tourism minister, the sources said.
Mishra, who is in home isolation after testing COVID- 19 positive, said it was “not a raid” and that the officials “just wanted some documents”. Speaking to reporters after CBI officials left his residence, the former minister said, “They asked me about the documents of the project and I told them they are in the department and not with me. The Tourism Boat project was approved by the then government and not by me as a person.” Mishra, a sitting MLA of Badamba in Cuttack district, said he has all along cooperated with the CBI.
The BJD leader said that he was not given prior information regarding the visit of the central investigating agency to his place. The 7-member CBI team was in his house for about two hours. The CBI had grilled two associates of the former minister, Dilip Mishra and Prafulla Singh, for nearly four hours in August.
Seashore Group is one of the 44 chit fund companies in Odisha that came under the scanner of the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) after the Supreme Court gave its order to probe their finances and transactions.
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