Bhubaneswar: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached assets worth Rs 3.94 crore of a bureaucrat couple in Odisha in a money laundering and disproportionate assets (DA) case.
The ED attached properties worth Rs 3.94 crore of OFS officer Nalini Prusty and her husband, OAS officer Bijaya Ketan Sahoo, the agency stated in a release on Tuesday.
An FIR was lodged on August 30, 2018 at the Vigilance police station, Cuttack, under the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018, against the couple for possession of disproportionate assets.
The ED probe found that the couple had invested their unaccounted money in properties and bank deposits in their and Nalini’s mother Debaki’s name.
In 2018, Odisha Vigilance had arrested the couple on charges of possessing assets disproportionate to their known sources of income.
During raids at several places, Vigilance officials had unearthed assets worth Rs 6.87 crore allegedly belonging to Nalini, who was then Financial Adviser-cum-Chief Accounts Officer of Odisha Primary Education Programme Authority (OPEPA), and Sahoo, who was the Chatrapur tehsildar.
Properties included two flats at Utkal Villa in Bhubaneswar worth Rs 1.8 crore, furniture and interior articles worth Rs 1.34 crore, property at Grand Asiana in Puri town worth Rs 21.4 lakh, triple-storied building in Bhubaneswar worth Rs 49.6 lakh, six plots in Bhubaneswar and Jatni worth Rs 58 lakh, Rs 1.24 crore Fixed Deposits in four banks, Rs 22 lakh deposits in saving bank accounts, household articles worth Rs 46 lakh and gold and diamond jewellery worth Rs 40 lakh.
A month after their arrest, Debaki died by suicide by jumping off the terrace of an apartment at Jaydev Vihar in Bhubaneswar.
