‘Tainted’ OAS Officer On 5-Day Remand
On Wednesday, the Court of Special Judge, Vigilance, in Sundargarh granted Odisha Vigilance a five-day remand for former Nabarangpur Additional Sub-Collector Prashanta Rout, who is accused of amassing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.
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Rourkela: On Wednesday, the Court of Special Judge, Vigilance, in Sundargarh granted Odisha Vigilance a five-day remand for former Nabarangpur Additional Sub-Collector Prashanta Rout, who is accused of amassing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.
This came a day after the state government ordered his mandatory retirement.
On June 23, over Rs 3 crore in unaccounted cash was seized from his residences in Bhubaneswar and Nabarangpur during simultaneous searches by Vigilance sleuths. He was arrested the next day for allegedly amassing over Rs 5 crore in assets, representing 506% of his known sources of income.
Movable and immovable assets worth crores were discovered in the name of Rout and his family members, including a double-storey building at Kanan Vihar here, five plots, four of which were in prime areas of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar, and one benami plot at Umerkote in Nabarangpur district, totaling Rs 3,02,30,800. The vigilance team also discovered bank and insurance deposits totaling Rs 92.34 lakh, two cars and a two-wheeler worth approximately Rs 37 lakh, gold and silver jewelry, and household items totaling Rs 27.2 lakh.
The OAS officer spent Rs 87 lakh on his children's education. He also made consistent cash deposits into several Benami bank accounts.
A case was filed against Rout and his spouse in this regard under Sections 13(2) r/w 13(1)(b)/12 Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018.
Notably, four cases of misconduct have been filed against Rout, and a departmental investigation is underway.
