Another officer held in Odisha's IAS bribery case

An official of the horticulture department was arrested on Tuesday on the charge of acting as a conduit for IAS officer Bijay Ketan Upadhyaya who is in jail for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 1 lakh from a private company, officials said.

Police arrested Pitabas Pradhan who joined as a data entry operator on an outsourcing basis on January 8, 2014, and was re-engaged as Management Information System (MIS) executive on September 1, 2019 at the office of the director of horticulture.

As MIS executive, Pradhan was processing bills from different suppliers.

Upadhaya was arrested on December 31 after sleuths nabbed Santosh Kumar Pattanayak, vice president of YES Bank at its Bapuji Nagar Branch in Bhubaneswar.

Patnaik had allegedly received the bribe amount of Rs 1 lakh from SRM Plastochem Pvt Ltd, supplier of sprinklers in Odisha under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY), on behalf of Upadhaya.

Upadhaya, the ex-director of the horticulture department, is in jail since his arrest.