Ex-IAS Officer Vinod Kumar, 5 Others Get 3-Yr RI In Odisha Rural Loan Fraud Case

Bhubaneswar: A Special Vigilance court on Wednesday convicted former IAS officer Vinod Kumar and five others in the Odisha Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC) scam and sentenced them to three years of rigorous imprisonment.

The six have been convicted under Section 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and under section 467,468,471, 420, 120(B) of IPC.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on the convicts. Apart from Vinod Kumar, other convicts are company secretary Swostiranjan Mohapatra, junior loan officer Satyaprakash Behera, assistant system analyst Jnanendra Swain and Debadutta Ray, MD and Bibhuti Bhusan Swain, Partner of Bhumika Builders Pvt Ltd.

It may be noted that this is the fifth consecutive conviction of Vinod Kumar in corruption cases, a vigilance release said.

During his tenure as the managing director of ORHDC in 1999, the 1989-batch IAS officer had sanctioned housing funds to the tune of Rs 33.34 crore through unfair means when rural housing was taken up in a big scale after the super cyclone.