Convicted IAS officer remains elusive

Senior IAS officer Vinod Kumar, who was convicted by a Vigilance court for committing financial irregularities in the Odisha Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC), remained untraceable, a vigilance official said today.

IAS officer Vinod Kumar was former managing director of the ORHDC and is currently posted as an officer on special duty in the state's Higher Education Department.

A team of vigilance sleuths raided his residence at VIP Colony in Nayapalli area in the city but could not find him there, the official said adding he did not attend his office today.

He has neither surrendered before the court nor available to the vigilance team.

"This is the third time that the Vigilance raided the house of Kumar. We had gone to his residence to arrest him by the order of the court," Vigilance DSP Nirmal Mohanty told reporters.

"If we fail to trace him, we will inform the court. The court will then declare him absconder after which we will initiate the process of attaching his property," Mohanty said.

Kumar, a 1989 batch officer, was convicted by a Special Vigilance Court in Bhubaneswar in a fraud case on Tuesday. The court issued non-bailable warrants against him and four others who did not attend the court on the day of delivery of judgement.

When Kumar was the Managing Director of the ORHDC when an irregularity of Rs 55 lakh took place in 2000. He was placed under suspension in 2001.

Houses of the four other persons against whom the NBW has been issued, were also raided simultaneously and they were also not found.