BHUBANESWAR: The Vigilance on Tuesday carried out raids at multiple locations linked to assistant engineer (AE) of Roads and Buildings (R&B) Division, Bhubaneswar, Raja Kishore Jena and unearthed property and assets worth crores.
Vigilance officials carried out searches at 10 different properties linked to Jena in connection with a disproportionate assets case, and found a three-storey building spread over 3,500 sq ft area at sector-5 in Niladri Vihar, two flats - one measuring 1,800 sq ft and another measuring 650 sq ft - in Cosmopolis, a shopping unit of 400 sq ft area in Utkal Kanika Galleria Mall, another shopping unit at Symphony Mall and 13 high-value plots including nine in Bhubaneswar, three in Nayagarh and one at Khurda in the name of him and his family members.
Jena’s plots in Bhubaneswar include two 1.04 acre land patches at Bhagabanpur mouza and another 1.01 acre at Abaranga near Khurda. The bank, postal and insurance deposits of Jena and his family members were also found to be around Rs 75 lakh, while the value of cash and household articles seized exceeded Rs 30 lakh.
Jena had even spent about Rs 67 lakh towards education of his two children in two reputed private institutions including a medical college in the capital city, Vigilance officials said.
The searches were carried out by teams comprising seven DSPs, five inspectors, a sub-inspector, 11 ASIs and other suppor staff. They covered his residential building at sector-5, Niladri Vihar, a flat in Cosmopolis Tower, a shop at Symphony Mall, his parental house in Jagannathprasad (Nayagarh), his office at R&B Division-III in Bhubaneswar, and his in-laws’ residences in Patia (Bhubaneswar) and Sivaji Nagar (Nayagarh).
Officials said Jena joined government service as JE in 2007 with a consolidated salary of Rs 5,000 and was regularised in 2013. He was promoted to the rank of assistant engineer and posted in R&B Division III in the state capital in December 2020. The AE was drawing a net pay of Rs 77,027 per month.
“Investigation is in progress and we suspect detection of more assets. A technical team is conducting the valuation of the total assets detected,” an official from the Vigilance wing said.
This is the second raid on an engineer in connection with a DA case in the capital city within a week. On Thursday last week, the Vigilance had arrested executive engineer of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) Jagannath Pattnaik on charges of possessing disproportionate assets to the tune of 148 per cent of his known sources of income.