Former district collector arrested in Odisha

A former district collector was arrested Friday in Odisha on charges of gross irregularities and corruption in the recruitment of revenue inspectors in Balangir district.

The state vigilance wing arrested former collector of Balangir Deboraj Mishra from his residence in Bhubaneswar for the scam during 2012-13, when Mishra was the collector of the district.

"We have arrested Mishra on charges of document manipulation during the recruitment of revenue inspectors, and assistant revenue inspectors in Balangir. Another three-four officials involved in it will soon be arrested," K.B. Singh, vigilance director told IANS.

Mishra was earlier suspended after prima facie evidence found against his involvement in the irregularities in the recruitment process. The Odisha government had directed the vigilance to initiate criminal proceedings against him and others involved in the scam.

The crime branch has registered a case in the sub-divisional judicial magistrate court in Balangir against the former collector, four OAS officers and a clerk.

The accused OAS officers are Aneeta Panda, Binod Bihari Dash, Raghunath Mundari, and Ripunath Suna. The accused clerk is Niranjan Tripathy.

The irregularities in the recruitment came to light through an RTI report obtained by a group of candidates.

The candidates had alleged that some selected candidates were given 100 out of 100 marks in Mathematics while two questions in the subject paper were wrong.

The wrong answers of candidates had been scratched and replaced with correct answers favouring some candidates to get appointment, they alleged.