[Artha Tatwa ponzi scam] Orissa High Court dismisses plea by ex-Advocate General Ashok Mohanty seeking discharge from case

The Orissa High Court last week dismissed a revision petition filed by former Orissa Advocate General Ashok Mohanty seeking his discharge from a case registered against him related to the Artha Tatwa multi-crore chit fund scam [Asok @ Ashok Mohanty v. Republic of India]..Justice SK Sahoo found that the allegations against Mohanty could not be called groundless, and that there were sufficient grounds to proceed against him for the offences of criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, forgery and using as genuine a forged document.“It cannot be said there are complete absence of prima facie materials to constitute the ingredients of the offence,” the Court said while examining the charges..The Court was hearing a revision petition filed by Mohanty challenging a 2018 trial court order which had refused to discharge him from the case.The allegation against Mohanty, who was Advocate General from June 2009 to September 2014, was that he purchased a house in Cuttack from Chairman of the Artha Tatwa Group Pradeep Sethy. The consideration for the sale transaction, which took place in October 2012, was shown to be slightly over ₹1 crore, while the amount paid was only ₹70 lakh.Interestingly, Sethy himself had purchased the house from former Orissa High Court judge, Justice Laxmikanta Mohapatra..During investigation, two money receipts were seized from the official premises of Mohanty indicating the payment of ₹1 crore and 1 lakh. These money receipts bore the forged signatures of Sethy. The prosecution alleged that Mohanty misappropriated the balance amount of ₹31 lakh that he was supposed to pay to Sethy.Additionally, the prosecution claimed that Mohanty, in furtherance of the criminal conspiracy, played a role in Sethy’s anticipatory bail being allowed in 2012. Sethy had moved the High Court anticipating arrest after a First Information Report (FIR) was registered against the company and its directors, following agitations against the scam. It was submitted that there was no stiff objection from the State, represented by the Advocate General, during the bail hearing..On the contrary, Mohanty contended that it was humanly impossible for him to verify each case to know the facts, points of law and who were the accused persons.Further, the order granting anticipatory bail to Sethy was passed by a judge of the High Court and it was difficult to suggest that the same was the outcome of criminal conspiracy, he argued..The Court considered the submissions and rejected the finding of the trial court that simply because the proceedings were not challenged by the petitioner earlier, he could not file a discharge petition.“Choice of challenging the proceeding at a particular stage lies with the accused and if it is legally permissible, then the Court has to entertain the same and consider the same in accordance with law and cannot reject the petition merely on the ground of not challenging the same earlier.”.Justice Sahoo also took a poor view of the trial court’s failure to record reasons for the finding that the overt acts of Mohanty amounted to criminal conspiracy.“Failure to record reasons can amount to denial of justice, as the reasons are live links between the minds of the decision taker to the controversy in question and the decision or conclusion arrived at.”In this regard, the judge considered remanding the matter to the trial court but, in light of its long pendency, decided against it..On examining the statements and documents placed on record, it was noted that there was strong suspicion founded on the materials.“There are strong suspicion founded upon such materials which lead this Court to form a presumptive opinion as to the existence of factual ingredients constituting such offence. Whether those statements and documents would be sufficient to hold the petitioner guilty is not to be decided in this revision petition,” the single-judge observed..While dismissing Mohanty's revision petition, the Court asked the trial court to expedite the framing of charges if there were no other impediments and preferably decide the case within one year from the date of framing of charge.By way of abundant caution, the Court also mentioned in the order that the observations were limited to deciding on the prayer for discharge..Senior Advocate Santosh Kumar Mund appeared for Mohanty, while the State was represented by CBI Special Public Prosecutor Sarthak Nayak..[Read Judgment]