Guwahati: A Division Bench of Gauhati High Court has directed the Cen-tral Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate all the cases registered against chit fund companies in the state taking a strong view of dubious operation of chit fund groups who have been exploiting gullible people in the state. After hearing a bunch of over ten PILs and Writ Petitions filed against chit fund companies together, the High Court Bench comprising Justice K Sridhar Rao and Justice P K Saikia issued the directive to the CBI which was earlier handed over four cases pending against chit fund companies, Saradha Group and Uni Pay 2 by Assam government.
It may be mentioned that earlier Assam government and the CBI had opposed many petitions filed in the court during 2012-2014 seeking CBI investigation into those.The High Court while issuing directive to the CBI referred to the Supreme Court verdict delivered on May 9, 2014 in connection to cases against chit fund companies operating in West Bengal.Earlier, the High Court had asked the petitioners and Assam government to submit details on cases filed against chit fund companies in Assam. Accordingly, the petitioners submitted names of 173 chit fund companies operating in the state while the state government sub-mitted information about 221 chit fund companies.
The state government informed the Court that total 481 cases had been registered against these chit fund companies by different wings of Assam police in the state. Charge-sheets had been filed in respect of 107 of these cases and final report have been submitted in 14 of the cases. Investigation is going on in 321 cases.During earlier hearing the state government and the chit fund companies had opposed handing over of cases to the CBI. Assam government had argued that investigating agencies in the state were capable of handling these cases.On the other had CBI showed unwillingness to take up the cases citing work pressure and lack of manpower.