BHUBANESWAR: Nabarangpur additional sub-collector Prasanta Kumar Rout whose disproportionate assets (DA) stood at over Rs 5.21 crore, almost 506 per cent of known sources of his income, allegedly used faceless people to open bank accounts to hide the ill-gotten money.
Out of the total deposits, the anti-corruption agency traced Rs 38.64 lakh in accounts of two private individuals. Rout had reportedly opened the bank accounts without their knowledge. One of them was a bus driver, Vigilance sources revealed.
“A bus owner-cum-driver used to drop his children to their school in the capital and he had possibly collected documents from him on the pretext of security reasons. That account was traced in IndusInd Bank,” sources revealed to The New Indian Express.
In Kendrapara, where he had two stints, Rout allegedly collected documents from a woman on the promise of getting her a ration card. “He used documents of these two individuals to open bank accounts and started depositing money regularly since the last few years,” the sources pointed out.
Rout who was formally arrested on Friday was found in possession of a two-storey building at Kanan Vihar in Bhubaneswar, four plots in the twin city and one in Umerkote, over Rs 3.02 crore cash along with bank and insurance deposits amounting to Rs 92.34 lakh.
Besides, gold and silver ornaments as well as household articles worth over Rs 27.27 lakh were also recovered from the additional sub-collector’s possession. Vigilance sources revealed he had spent Rs 87 lakh for her daughter’s medical course and son’s education.
However, this is not for the first time Rout has been booked in a corruption case. He was caught red-handed by Vigilance in November 2018 for allegedly accepting Rs 1 lakh bribe from a panchayati executive officer when he was posted as block development officer in Bisra. He was suspended from the date of his arrest on November 6.
After his reinstatement, he was posted as additional sub-collector of Nabarangpur on January 18, 2020. He functioned as in-charge sub-collector of Nabarangpur since June last year and that is where he raked in big bucks. Vigilance sources believe he allegedly made money by showing undue favours to contracting firms ofBharatmala Pariyojna project.
Vigilance officers also suspect he minted money during his stint as tehsildar in Kendrapara, Jajpur, Balasore and Bargarh districts.Rout is also suspected to have made illegal gains when he was BDO in Jajpur and Cuttack.