BHUBANESWAR: A special Vigilance court on Thursday handed Congress MLA Md Moquim and dismissed IAS officer Vinod Kumar three years in jail in a 22-year-old loan fraud case. Moquim represents Cuttack-Barabati Assembly Segment and his qualification as legislator is now under scrutiny virtue of the sentencing by the court.
The Court of Special Judge, Vigilance also awarded the same punishment to director of Metro Builders Private Limited Peeyush Mohanty and former company secretary of Odisha Rural Housing and Development Corporation (ORHDC) Swosti Ranjan Mohapatra in the case.
The loan fraud took place when Kumar was managing director of ORHDC between January 4, 2000 and May 15, 2001. Metro Builders had applied and was sanctioned a term loan of Rs 1.5 crore from the state PSU for its Metro City-II project.
However, when Kumar sanctioned the loan, he was neither delegated with financial powers by board of directors of ORHDC nor was he authorised to sign the cheques. The proposal to sanction the loan in favour of Metro Builders was not placed before the board of directors of ORHDC or the loan committee for approval.
Site verification was not carried out and documents like Bhubaneswar Development Authority’s plan, project estimate and fire certificate were forged to avail the loan.
3 year jail for Cong MLA Moquim, former IAS officer
By on October 31, 2007, the outstanding amount of Metro Builders had grown to Rs 6.22 crore. During trial, the prosecution examined 17 witnesses and produced the documents to substantiate the charges against the accused, Vigilance Special Public Prosecutor, Hemant Kumar Swain told TNIE.
Reacting to the sentencing, the Congress MLA said he has been framed in the case and will appeal against the judgement in the High Court. Stating that neither he nor his company has done anything wrong, Moquim said out of the Rs 1.5 crore, the company has repaid Rs 1.26 crore. “My bail has been granted and I will move High Court against the ruling,” he added.