Bhubaneswar: Separate courts here today rejected bail petitions of suspended BJD MLA Pravat Tripathy, model Preeti Bhatia and two others arrested for their alleged links with the multi-crore chitfund scam in Odisha.
Tripathy, who was produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate's (special) court after completion of his 13-day remand in CBI custody, applied for bail on health ground and the Assembly session commencing from November 20.
However, the judge P L Satpathy rejected the bail plea and sent Tripathy to jail till November 26. The special court also rejected bail petitions of two businessmen, Vinith Kumar Lalani and Dilip Kumar Mohanty, and remanded them to judicial custody. They had earlier been in CBI custody.
The Khordha district and sessions court rejected the bail plea of Mumbai-based model and television serial producer Preeti Bhatia.
The special CBI court had earlier rejected Bhatia's bail petition. The model had moved the district and sessions court challenging the order of the special court.
Tripathy, Lalani, Mohanty and Bhatia were arrested by CBI for their alleged links with Artha Tatwa Group, one of the major players in the multi-crore chitfund scam in Odisha.
Besides these four, as many as 22 others including Mayurbhanj MP Ramchandra Hansda, former MLAs Subarna Naik and Hitesh Bagarti and Artha Tatwa Group CMD Pradip Sethy were produced before the court. All of them applied for bail which were rejected.
Hansda and two ex-MLAs are in jail custody after being arrested by the CBI for their alleged link with Nabadiganta Capital Service Limited.
