The anti-corruption Vigilance wing of Odisha police on Friday caught an administrative officer, who topped the State civil services examination in 2019, red-handed while demanding and receiving bribe from a complainant for conversion of agriculture land into homestead plot, officials said.
The bribe-taking Odisha Administrative Officer Aswini Kumar Panda (33), currently posted as Tehsildar, in Bamra under Sambalpur district, topped in Odisha Civil Services in 2019.
“The accused OAS officer was apprehended by Odisha Vigilance while demanding and accepting bribe of Rs 15,000 from the complainant for conversion of agricultural land to homestead land in a mutation case. For about a month, the complainant had been requesting him for conversion of agricultural land. However he demanded a bribe of Rs 20,000 to allow conversion and issue of Record of Rights in favour of the complainant. When the complainant expressed his inability to pay the bribe, the Tahasildar reduced the bribe amount to Rs 15,000 and threatened to not allow the conversion in mutation case otherwise.
”Left with no other option, the complainant approached the Vigilance authorities, following which, a team of Odisha Vigilance nabbed Tehsildar, today while taking bribe Rs 15,000 from the complainant through his office driver P Praveen Kumar. The driver has also been taken into custody. The entire tainted bribe money Rs 15, 000 has been recovered from them and seized”, the Vigilance officials said in a statement.
In another bribery case Chittaranjan Rout, District Labour Officer in Nayagarh was arrested by Odisha Vigilance while demanding and taking bribe of Rs 6,000 from a Labourer (complainant) for issuance of labour cards in favour of complainant and 19 other labourers.
Similarly in another vigilance operation, Puspita Mahakud, former Panchayat Executive Officer, Luhasila Gram Panchayat under Bijatola Block in Mayurbhanj, presently attached to Sub-Collector, Rairangpur, was nabbed for embezzlement of government funds to the tune of Rs 5.68 lakh earmarked for distribution to senior citizens as Old Age Pension.