Delivering its first conviction order in the chit fund scam, a designated court here on Tuesday awarded five years’ rigorous imprisonment (RI) and slapped a fine of Rs 3 lakh on the managing director (MD) of a tainted chit fund company that had duped its investors of Rs 1 crore.

The special court headed by an ADJ-rank judicial officer found Prakash Panda of Siridi Sai Real Estate Pvt ltd guilty under the Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (in Financial Establishment) Act of 2011 and under several Sections of IPC. The court immediately convicted him and awarded the punishments.

The court also found the company to be guilty under Section 6 of the OPID Act and awarded a further one year’s RI to Panda and slapped a fine of Rs two lakh. In default of the fine, the MD shall undergo RI of another one year, informed Special Prosecutor Subrat Mohanty.

Convicting Panda under Sections 406, 420, 468 and 471 of IPC, the court also sentenced him to undergo RI of two years, four years, four years and one year, respectively, and pay separate amounts of fines. All the punishments shall run concurrently, the prosecutor added.

Panda as MD of the company started collecting money from the investors across the State since 2007; and when he failed to pay back the returns to the investors, they approached the High Court. On a direction from the HC, the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the State Crime Branch police arrested Panda in February 2014.

Adjudicating the case for over a year and examining as many as 17 witnesses in this connection, the designated court in its first judgement convicted Panda, who is cooling his heels behind the bar for last 33 months. “The period of detention in custody shall be set off,” the prosecutor said, quoting the judgement.