On 18 August 2024, the official X handle of the Assam Chief Minister’s Office (@CMOfficeAssam) posted that Shri Rishiraj Gogoi, Shri Jayanta Modok and Shri Alok Baruah from Guwahati had met Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma and donated ₹6,00,000 to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund. The post recorded the Chief Minister’s expression of gratitude for the contribution to Assam’s relief efforts.

Seventeen days later, on or about 4 September 2024, Geetanagar Police Station registered Case No. 174/2024. The FIR alleged that Joy Modak and Rishi Raj Gogoi (also referred to as Rishiraj Gogoi), along with associates, had been operating a stock-trading business in the guise of GoMillions LLP and collecting money from the public through a platform called TradeBull by promising high returns in a short duration. The case invoked provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Act, 2019. Joy Modak was arrested on 5 September 2024. The matter was subsequently transferred to the CBI.

In August 2026, the Enforcement Directorate’s Guwahati Zonal Office provisionally attached assets worth approximately ₹15.25 crore under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. The attachment covered bank balances, fixed deposits, a stock-trading account, motor vehicles (including a Porsche and a Mercedes-Benz) and cash. The ED stated that the action related to Rishiraj Gogoi, Joy Modak and their associates, promoters of M/s GoMillions LLP.

Investigators reported data relating to more than 25,410 unique investor identities on the entity’s server, an aggregate payment liability of approximately ₹34.93 crore, and roughly ₹63.41 crore credited to the principal bank accounts of GoMillions LLP. The alleged proceeds were said to have been layered through connected entities (including Rightway Infocom Private Limited, Carely Solutions Private Limited and Lotus Corporation) before being diverted to personal accounts of the promoters and family members.

These three documented events form a clear chronological sequence: an official CMO post recording a meeting and donation involving Rishiraj Gogoi on 18 August 2024; registration of the FIR naming him among the principal accused on or about 4 September 2024; and the ED’s provisional attachment of ₹15.25 crore in the related money-laundering investigation nearly two years later.

What the Public Record Establishes About the Scale?

The ED’s findings place the alleged scheme among the larger unregulated-deposit cases handled in Assam in recent years. More than 25,000 unique investor identities, a reported liability exceeding ₹34 crore, and credited amounts above ₹63 crore indicate a significant volume of public funds. The use of a product-based multi-level marketing facade (cosmetics and other goods under GoMillions LLP) combined with promises of fixed daily returns of 0.85 per cent and doubling of investment within roughly six months mirrors patterns seen in other unregulated deposit schemes that regulators have previously flagged as high-risk to ordinary depositors.

The Gauhati High Court, while dealing with Joy Modak’s bail application in November 2024, noted the FIR’s core allegation that the accused had collected money from the public with false promises of high returns through the TradeBull platform. Bail was refused at that stage on the basis of the case diary material then available.

The Historical Context That Raises Questions about Himanta Biswa Sarma

The same public record contains an earlier chapter involving allegations against Himanta Biswa Sarma in the Saradha chit-fund investigations. In 2013–14, after the collapse of the Saradha Group (which had collected thousands of crores from investors across eastern India, including Assam), a letter attributed to Saradha chairman Sudipto Sen named several political figures, including Himanta Biswa Sarma (then an Assam minister).

The letter claimed cash payments over a period. CBI conducted searches at Sarma’s residence and a media organisation linked to his family in 2014. Sarma was examined by the agency. He has consistently denied receiving any illegal payments, stated that he cooperated fully as a witness, and noted that the examination occurred before he joined the BJP. He was not named as an accused in any chargesheet arising from those investigations. Political opponents have repeatedly revived the allegations; Sarma and his supporters have dismissed them as politically motivated..

Connecting the Documented Points…

An official CMO social-media post is not a private communication. It is a public record of access: three Guwahati residents, one of whom would within weeks be named in an FIR as a designated partner of an LLP later investigated for unregulated deposit collection, met the Chief Minister and made a donation that the CMO chose to publicise. Donations to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund are common and often publicised. The question that arises in public interest is not whether a donation is inherently improper, but whether the identity of one of the donors create a legitimate expectation of further transparency.

Does the fact of an official CMO post recording a meeting and donation establish that Rishiraj Gogoi held “significant relevance, access or political proximity”?

What, if anything, was known to the office about the nature of GoMillions LLP or TradeBull at the time of the meeting? 

Questions That Remain Open in Public Interest

1. What was the precise purpose of the meeting beyond the recorded donation? Was it a routine courtesy call, a relief-related interaction, or did it involve any discussion of business activities?
2. At the time the CMO chose to publicise the meeting, had any complaint, intelligence input or regulatory flag concerning GoMillions LLP or TradeBull already reached Assam Police or any other agency?
3. After the FIR was registered and the matter transferred to the CBI, and after the ED initiated its money-laundering investigation culminating in the ₹15.25 crore provisional attachment, has any statement been issued clarifying the nature of the August 2024 interaction?
4. Given that more than 25,000 investor identities and tens of crores of rupees are involved, do the victims or their representatives have access to information about whether any political or official facilitation, even if only in the form of perceived access, played any role in the period before the FIR?
5. How do the standards of transparency applied to meetings and donations involving individuals later named in major economic-offence cases compare with the standards applied in other high-profile Assam cases?

Unregulated deposit schemes that promise high fixed returns have repeatedly caused large losses to ordinary investors across India. When such a scheme later becomes the subject of a CBI investigation and an ED attachment of more than ₹15 crore, any documented interaction between one of its promoters and the highest elected office in the state, occurring only weeks earlier and publicised by that office, naturally generates questions. Those questions do not require an assumption of criminal collusion. They require an accounting of access, timing and knowledge.

The Saradha episode remains relevant only as historical context: allegations of political proximity to a large chit-fund operation were once levelled, investigated to a limited extent, and left without charges against the individual concerned.

If an official cmo updates a post about meeting a CM with person X, then perhaps, person X is considered closer to the CM and his office? It generally signals that Person X holds significant relevance, access, or political proximity to the CM. So, is it wrong to say that the chit fund accused Rishiraj Gogoi has ‘decent connections’ with Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma???

Is the ₹6-lakh donation receipt/CMO post and the identities/backgrounds of Jayanta Modok and Alok Baruah connected with Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma. Does this chain prove a deeper political/business relationship between the chit fund accused Rishiraj Gogoi and the Chief Minister? Until it does, the chronological proximity and the official nature of the CMO communication remain the points that continue to invite scrutiny.