BHUBANESWAR: In a significant order, the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has directed a former Vigilance officer to pay Rs 5 lakh compensation to an engineer for allegedly framing him in a fake bribery case in Dhenkanal district three years back.
The then Deputy SP of Vigilance at Dhenkanal Himansu Sekhar Mishr had conducted a raid at the office of Rajendra Prasad Mishra, a junior engineer of Kamakhyanagar NAC on March 24, 2017. Rajendra was arrested on charges of taking bribe of Rs 25,000 from a contractor Suresh Nayak.However, the OHRC in its order observed that the raid was ‘stage managed’. Quoting the inquiry report, the rights panel stated that Himansu did not follow the standard protocol for the raid.
The victim had moved the State Human Rights panel the same year demanding an inquiry into the matter and compensation from the erring officer for harassment and damage caused to his reputation. The case was taken up by DIG (Vigilance) Cuttack who retrieved CCTV footage of Ranjendra’s office for investigation.
The Vigilance, team led by Himanshu, raided Rajendra’s office in presence of contactor Nayak entrusted with civil works at Kamakhyanagar NAC, and claimed to have recovered Rs 25,000 from the drawer of his office table. However, examination of the CCTV footage revealed that the former DSP and his team found nothing from the engineer’s office. Later, a constable of the team Udhab Lenka entered Rajendra’s office with a folder and kept it in the victim’s drawer. Following this, the raiding team again entered the office and pulled out the folder which contained the cash.
The OHRC stated that such an act is not expected from an officer of an anti-corruption watchdog like Vigilance. Apart from imposing a penalty of Rs 5 lakh from Mishra, the rights panel held contractor Nayak as the main conspirator of the ‘fake’ raid and asked Government to blacklist and make him ineligible from getting any Government contract.
It also asked Vigilance to not involve the two constables who were a part of the raiding team in any duty which are important in nature and recommend appropriate proceedings against the independent witnesses - peon Hemant Suri and cleck Berakishore Behera of office of DSWO-Dhenkanal.
Meanwhile, the Vigilance department has informed the rights panel that it has initiated departmental proceedings against Himansu.