Bhubaneswar: In a major cash seizure, Vigilance Department on Friday seized cash of Rs 2.91 crore during a raid on the properties of an Additional Sub-Collector of Nabarangpur.
On the strength of search warrant issued by Special Judge, Vigilance, Sundargarh, Vigilance teams conducted simultaneous raids on the properties of Nabarangpur Additional Sub-Collector Prasanta Kumar Rout at 9 locations, Vigilance SP, M. Radhakrishna said.
Till now, the vigilance officials recovered cash of Rs 2,91,93,800 from Bhubaneswar and Nowrangpur residences of Rout. This is the second highest cash seizure in the history of Odisha Vigilance.
The Vigilance Department, so far, has detected six such cases where cash seizure is above Rs 1 crore.
Highest cash of Rs.3.41 crore seized during house searches against Kartikeswar Raul, AE, MI, Bhanjanagar, Ganjam on 07.04.2022. The second highest is recovered from Rout.
Cash of Rs 1.40 crore seized during house searches against Ashish Kumar Das, SE, RW Division, Malkangiri on March 25, 2022 while Rs 1.13 crore cash detected from Dr. Sukant Jena, Gynaecologist, Charichhaka CHC following trap on February 16, 2022.
Similarly, over Rs 1.06 crore cash was detected during house searches against Gaya Santara, Joint Manager, IDCOL in December 2022.
And, Rs 1.01 crore unearthed during house searches against Sudhansu Sekhar Mishra, Ex-DFO, Athagarh, Cuttack on 24.02.2016.
In all the above cases, the Vigilance has registered cases against the concerned officials and prosecuted them.
The Vigilance officials said Shri Rout seems to have made regular cash deposits in a number of benami bank accounts. Details of one such account opened in the name of an acquaintance in IndusInd Bank, Bhubaneswar has been collected where in Rs 26.27 lakh cash deposits are suspected to have been made by the additional sub-collector out from 2019 onwards.
The bank documents, passbook, ATM card etc. have been recovered from the house of Rout in Bhubaneswar. Verification is going on in this regard, the official said.
The raids were conducted at Shri Rout’s two-storeyed house in Kanan Vihar, Bhubaneswar; his residence and office in Nabarangpur and his ancestral home in Bhadrak. The vigilance team is also conducting raids at the house of his relatives and close relatives at five other locations, vigilance officials said.
