Arrested Odisha engineer parked around Rs 2 crore money & gold in tenant’s house to escape from Vigilance scanner

The Odisha Vigilance on Saturday arrested a junior engineer, who had allegedly parked ill-gotten money and gold worth around Rs 2 crore in the tenant’s house.

The corrupt engineer had allegedly amassed disproportionate assets to the tune of 347% more than his known sources of income.

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“Susanta Kumar Sethy, Assistant Engineer, Roads & Buildings, Khariar in Nuapada district was arrested by Odisha Vigilance and forwarded to the Court of Special Judge, Vigilance, Bhubaneswar for possession of disproportionate assets (DA) to the tune of 347% of his known sources of income, which he could not account for satisfactorily”, the anti-corruption vigilance wing said in a statement.

In this connection, a case was registered against Sethy and his spouse under sections 13(2) r/w 13(1)(b)/12 Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act,2018.

During house searches, movable and immovable assets worth crores of rupees were unearthed in the name of Sethy, and his family members. The ill-gotten assets included among other things a triple storeyed building with area approximately 6500 Square feet located at Bhubaneswar, a construction building, a farmhouse spread over 1 acre located in Pipili on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, nine high value plots including three plots in Bhubaneswar, bank and insurance deposits worth Rs.55 lakh, household articles worth over Rs.14 lakh.

After thorough search, inventory and further enquiry, the income, expenditure and assets of Sethy were calculated and he was found in possession of disproportionate assets which were 347% in excess of his known sources of income.

Further, it is learnt that Sethy had parked huge ill-gotten money of Rs.55 lakh and gold weighing 1.4 kg in the house of his tenant to evade detection during Vigilance raids, which was usurped by the tenant. In this connection, the spouse of Sethy had lodged an FIR in Dhauli Police Station against the tenant for not returning the same. The case is now under investigation by Daouli Police Station.

These cash and gold ornaments are suspected to have been the ill-gotten money of Sethy which is under verification by the Vigilance Officials, the Vigilance concluded.