Cuttack: The Orissa High Court Thursday rejected the bail pleas of senior IAS officer Vinod Kumar and five employees of the Odisha Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC) in connection with a scam.
The HC directed them to surrender before the Special Vigilance Court August 4 and asked the police not to arrest the six till the said date. The Special Vigilance Court, which had convicted Kumar, former MD of ORHDC, and five employees in connection with their alleged complicity in the gross financial irregularities, will pronounce the quantum of punishment August 4.
The Vigilance Directorate had registered a case against Kumar and five other employees of the ORHDC in 2000 for their alleged involvement in financial irregularities to the tune of Rs 55 lakh in the construction of cyclone shelters after the October 1999 Super Cyclone, which ravaged the coastal districts of the state.
Hearing the case, the Special Vigilance Court July 3 had convicted Kumar and five employees.
Apart from Kumar, the five employees convicted by the court are Sanjay Mohanty, Purna Chandra Das, Pradip Kumar Rout, Chitta Ranjan Mohanty and Ashish Kumar Nayak.
Of the six, only Sanjay Mohanty, Assistant Manager of the corporation, had appeared in the court. The court had later issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against the four absentees and Kumar, who is now posted as officer on special duty (OSD) in the Higher Education department.
A day after the court’s order, the Vigilance officials had gone to Kumar’s official residence at Nayapalli in Bhubaneswar July 5, but could not find him as the house was locked.
Of the five employees against whom the court had issued NBWs, three employees – Purna Chandra Das, Chittaranjan Malik and Pradip Rout – moved the HC challenging the order of the lower court.
The HC, after hearing their pleas, had granted them the interim relief July 8.
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