BHUBANESWAR: A mini armoury, 115 plots, a treasure of teak artefacts and property worth more than Rs 10 crore were what the state Vigilance stumbled upon during a search on divisional forest officer (DFO) of Keonjhar Kendu Leaf division, Nityananda Nayak, on Sunday.
Acting on allegations of amassing property and assets disproportionate to his income, the anti-corruption wing conducted raids at seven different locations and unearthed around 115 valuable plots - the highest number of land holdings detected by the agency in the name of any government officer and his/her family till now.
The searches also found the Odisha Forest Service (OFS) officer in possession of a four-storey building spread over 9,000 sq ft in Angul and a mini armoury that included a rifle and an array of traditional hunting weapons.
Officials said the raid was conducted at seven places including his parental house at Madanmohan Patna in Angul, government quarters in Keonjhar and residence of his son at Komanda in Nayagarh. The 115 plots detected during the search included 53 in the name of Nayak, 42 plots in the name of his spouse, 16 plots belonging to his two sons and four plots in the name of his daughter.
As per the Vigilance officials, 64 plots were purchased when Nayak was the forest ranger in Khariar division between 2007 and 2015, while another 39 plots were bought during his stint as the assistant conservator of forests (ACF) in Khariar and Rayagada divisions between 2015 and 2022.
“All plots were found to have been purchased in Chhendipada area of Angul between 1992 and 2024. The registered sale deed value of these plots is approximately Rs 2.5 crore. However, the actual value of these land holdings is likely to be higher than Rs 10 crore. A thorough probe has been launched suspecting undervaluation of these plots during registration,” a senior official said.
Other assets unearthed by Vigilance include a treasure of teak artefacts, Rs 1.55 lakh cash, 200 gram gold and two four-wheelers.
More wealth is likely to be detected as the bank details, insurance and postal and other deposits of the forest offer is under verification, the official said.
He said this is the highest number of plots unearthed during a raid in recent times with the previous highest detected in a disproportionate assets (DA) case being 105 plots belonging to chief construction engineer of Anandpur barrage project in Keonjhar Pravas Kumar Pradhan, in August last year.
Nayak joined government service as a forest ranger in 1992 and served in various positions including ACF, deputy conservator of forests (DCF) and DFO. His previous posting was in PCCF (Wildlife) headquarters in Bhubaneswar where he served as a DCF from September 2022 and joined the Keonjhar KL Division as the DFO following promotion in 2024.