Executive Officer of Odisha’s Sundargarh Municipality held on bribery charge

Bhubaneswar: The Vigilance sleuths today arrested a senior official of the Sundargarh Municipality on charges of taking bribe to clear pending bills towards supply of dress materials of municipality employees.

A Vigilance official said the Executive Officer of Sundargarh Municipality, Ashok Kumar Mishra was arrested by the officers of Vigilance, Rourkela Division after he was found demanding and accepting illegal gratification of Rs 15,000 from one Sk. Sahid Haq of Jharsuguda town to release his pending bills towards supply of dress materials to the employees of the municipality during 2017. Following his arrest, Mishra was forwarded to the court.

Based on a complaint lodged by Haq, the sleuths laid a trap today. While the Executive Officer was demanding and accepting the bribe money in his office room from the complainant, the sleuths caught the official red handed. The bribe money was also recovered from the possession of Mishra and seized in presence of witnesses.

The sleuth added right hand wash of Mishra as well as his money purse wash gave positive chemical reaction. The Executive Officer’s office room and government quarter at Sundargarh were searched.

In this connection, Rourkela Vigilance P.S. case No.9 U/s 7 PC (Amendment) Act, 2018 was registered. The case is under investigation.