BHUBANESWAR: The Vigilance on Tuesday arrested an auditor of the Regional Director of Education (RDE) office, Bhubaneswar for allegedly accepting Rs 4,000 bribe from a staff of a degree college in Khurda district.
The accused was identified as Ambika Prasad Rath. Following his arrest, raids were carried out at Rath’s property over suspicion of possession of disproportionate assets.
During the searches, a total of Rs 28.70 lakh was recovered including Rs 27.42 lakh from his residential building at Madhusudan Nagar and another Rs 1.28 lakh from his office table drawer, which is being suspected as bribe money collected by him earlier.
Vigilance officials said Rath was caught red-handed while taking the bribe from the degree college staff towards service verification and necessary correction of the pay fixation statements under MACP scheme in accordance with the service books and to enable drawl of pay.
Basing on his complaint, the Vigilance laid a trap and nabbed Rath while he was taking the bribe. The entire bribe money was seized from him.
A case has been registered and further investigation is in progress, Vigilance officials said.