Bhubaneswar: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has written to the governments of Odisha and eight other states, including West Bengal, Bihar, Tripura, Assam, Maharashtra and Jharkhand, to remove encroachments on property that belonged to the Rose Valley Group, so they may be sold off to repay victims of the multi-crore Ponzi scam.
The property will be sold by the Rose Valley Asset Disposal Committee (ADC), constituted by the Calcutta High Court in May 2015 for this purpose. The ADC will confiscate the properties once they are freed from encroachments and then auctioned off to the highest bidders. This was directed by the High Court.
The multi-state Ponzi scam is worth nearly Rs 17,000 crore. The letters have been addressed to the chief secretaries, principal secretaries of land and land revenue departments and state police chiefs, among others, the ED said.
The Agency also claimed that it paid Rs 10,200 each to over 7,000 investors as the first ever restitution of funds in this case. The Rose Valley Group owned nearly 25 properties at prime locations across the country. The ED believes that these properties will generate a substantial amount.
The Rose Valley Group had been scamming investors for years before its fortunes started to nosedive around 2012 after IRDAI raised allegations against the company for violating Reserve Bank of India norms. Gautam Kundu, the proprietor, was arrested in March 2015. A large number of influential people, including politicians, particularly from West Bengal, were arrested by the CBI and ED and tried before special courts in Odisha. Many of them are now on bail.
On Thursday, a special court in Khurda released Rs 332.76 crore worth of FDs owned by Rose Valley to the ADC. This money will be refunded to the innocent investors.
