ORHDC Scam: Orissa HC stays action against IAS officer Vinod Kumar

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KalingaTV News Network

Cuttack: Orissa High Court on Tuesday put a stay order on special Vigilance Court’s action against senior IAS officer Vinod Kumar, who is convicted in financial irregularities at Odisha Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC).

While hearing a plea today, the high court bench of Justice JP Das ordered not to take action against Kumar and others convicted in the case till next hearing that will take place on July 19.

Notably, the Special Vigilance Court convicted Vinod Kumar and five others – Sanjay Mohanty, Purna Chandra Das, Pradip Kumar Rout, Chittaranjan Mallick and Ashish Kumar Nayak on July 3 in connection with ORHDC scam.

All these six were found guilty of offences under sections 13(2) r/w 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and section 420/120-B of the Indian Penal Code for criminal conspiracy, obtaining pecuniary advantage to NGO Gramya Bikash Manch owned by Ashish Kumar Nayak by releasing funds in arbitrary manner without following the guidelines to set up Rural Building Centre (RBC), Balipatna and thereby cheating the state and the financial institutions.

Later, the court issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against all of them.

Acting on the NBW, the Vigilance officials had on two occasions raided his house at VIP Colony in Nayapalli area of Bhubaneswar to arrest them. However, they had to return empty handed as the bureaucrat was not available.

Vinod Kumar, who is currently serving as an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in the State’s Higher Education Department, was the then former Managing Director of ORHDC.

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