Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Vigilance sleuths on Wednesday apprehended Satyajit Rout, Deputy Director (Geology)-cum-Deputy Director of Mines, Jeypore, while he was allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 2 lakhs.
Rout was caught red-handed demanding and receiving the bribe from a leaseholder.
According to a Vigilance relese, the bribe was purportedly for granting an extension of a mining lease after its expiry and for extending other favours related to spot auctions of sand sources. The entire amount of tainted bribe money was recovered from Rout’s possession and seized on the spot.
Following the trap, Vigilance teams conducted simultaneous searches at Rout’s residential house at Lingaraj Nagar in Jeypore, another house at Bidyadharpur in Cuttack, and a third at Olakana in Mahanga, Cuttack, to ascertain whether he has accumulated assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. During the searches, an additional Rs 2.90 lakh in cash was unearthed from his Jeypore residence and seized.
With the initial bribe amount, the total cash recovered so far stands at Rs 4.90 lakh.
A case has been registered at Koraput Vigilance police station under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018, and further investigation is underway, the release added.
