BHUBANESWAR: In an unprecedented incident, a special public prosecutor posted at Bhawanipatna Special Vigilance Court in Kalahandi district was arrested on graft charges.
Sources said Asutosh Mishra was reportedly caught red-handed while accepting Rs 1 lakh from a police official to settle a vigilance case registered against him.
Mishra had allegedly demanded the bribe from suspended assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Malay Kumar Rana of Kalahandi to help him come clean on corruption charges. The case's charge-sheet has been filed and hearing is on at the Vigilance Court.
“Acting on a tip-off, officers of the Cuttack Vigilance Cell conducted a raid at Mishra's house on Saturday morning and caught him red-handed. The bribe amount recovered from him has been seized,” said a senior officer of the anti-corruption agency.
Searches are being carried out in his house at Radhakrishna Nagar in Bhawanipatna Town. A case has been registered and further inquiry is on, he added.
The State Vigilance had detected a whopping Rs 123.91 crore worth of wealth illegally accumulated by 138 persons last year. Among them, 93 were public servants.
In 2020, the anti-corruption wing registered a total of 245 cases including 93 disproportionate assets (DA) cases. As per the agency's data, DA cases were registered against 93 public servants and 45 private persons and the value of all the assets accumulated illegally stood at Rs 123.91 crore.
As many as 187 persons were arrested during the period on charges of corruption. They included 34 Class I, 28 Class II, 106 Class III and six Class IV employees besides five other public servants and eight private individuals.
Senior Indian Forest Service officer Abhay Kant Pathak was arrested in November last year on charges of amassing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. He was compulsorily retired in May after the Centre approved the state government’s recommendation.