CUTTACK: A Special Designated Court here has sentenced Subhransu Singh, managing director of Shree Bhumi Group of Companies to 7 years rigorous imprisonment for cheating hundreds of depositors of `4,34,28,783 with false promises. The court also imposed a fine of ` 1 lakh, failing to pay which Singh would have to undergo RI for another 18 months.
Singh had opened the company’s head office at Jaydev Vihar in Bhubaneswar and branches across the State. Singh and other office-bearers lured the depositors to different schemes of their company such as fixed deposit, monthly recurring deposit etc with a promise to pay more than double the deposited amount in 25 months.
After a large number of investors deposited crores of rupees with Shree Bhumi, the company paid the returns to some of the depositors. But, after September 2012 Singh and his other office bearers stopped paying the depositors and subsequently closed their offices and absconded.Acting on the complaint of one Nirmal Kumar Jesti, DSP, Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch, Sibaram Sahoo conducted a thorough investigation and filed the charged sheet. As per the charge sheet, the ponzi firm had cheated people of `4,34,28,783.
