3 Years Jail For Ex-IAS Officer Vinod Kumar & 5 Others In ORHDC Scam

Bhubaneswar: A Special Vigilance Court found former IAS officer Vinod Kumar and five other defendants guilty of the ORHDC scam and sentenced them to three years of solitary imprisonment on Wednesday.

The six were found guilty under Section 13 (2) of the PC Act of 1988 and Sections 467, 468, 471, 420, and 120(B) of the IPC.

The court also slapped a fine of Rs 50,000 on the guilty parties, secretary Swostiranjan Mohapatra, junior loan officer Satyaprakash Behera, assistant system analyst Jnanendra Swain, MD Debadutta Ray, and Bibhuti Bhusan Swain, the partner of Bhumika Builders Pvt Ltd.

Notably, this is Vinod Kumar’s fifth straight conviction for corruption.

The 1989-batch IAS officer sanctioned housing funds totaling Rs 33.34 crore through unfair means while serving as the managing director of Odisha Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC) in 1999 when rural housing was implemented on a large scale following the 99 super cyclone.