ORHDC scam: IAS officer Binod Kumar gets 3-year jail term

Cuttack: The Special Vigilance Court today awarded three-year jail term to senior IAS officer Binod Kumar and another official of the corporation, Purna Chandra Das, in connection with financial irregularities in Odisha Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC) in 2000.

Besides, the court imposed a fine of Rs 75,000 on Kumar for the offence. Later, the duo was sent to Jharpada jail after the Orissa High Court deferred hearing date of their bail pleas till Monday.

Earlier in the day, the IAS officer and Purna Chandra Das had surrendered before the court as per the Orissa High Court’s order.Hearing the case, the court sentenced Kumar and Das to three years of jail imprisonment, each.

On July 26, the Orissa High Court had asked five accused, including the IAS officer, in the financial irregularities to surrender before the Vigilance Court after rejecting their bail pleas.

It may be mentioned here that Kumar and five other employees of the Corporation-Sanjay Mohanty, Purna Chandra Das, Pradip Kumar Rout, Chittaranjan Mallick and Ashish Kumar Nayak-were held guilty under Sections 13 (2), 13(1)(d) of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and Sections 420 and 120 of IPC  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, Balipatna and thereby cheating the state and financial institutions.