Kalahandi: Vigilance sleuths on Thursday arrested district Deputy Labour Commissioner Dinabandhu Adhikari while accepting bribe of Rs 20,000 from a person for releasing ex-gratia funds announced in the name of his deceased brother.
As per sources, the labour official was caught red handed while accepting the bribe from Madhusudan Dora Chamapadeipur village of Lanjigarh block for releasing compensation announced in the name of his brother Sarat Dora who died during a factory mishap on May 21, 2016 at a fish and oil company located in Mumbai.
Speaking to media persons, the complainant said the Mumbai-based company for which his brother worked had released funds to their family in terms of fixed deposits following the death of Sarat in the mishap.
“We had withdrawn some amount of the compensation while the remaining was converted to Fixed Deposit bonds by the company kept in the custody of the Kalahandi district labour official. When we went to Dinabandhu Adhikari and asked for the rest of the ex-gratia amount the district Deputy Labour Commissioner demanded Rs 40,000 bribe to hand over the bonds to us. Despite repeated requests were made the official did not pay any heed to our pleas which was why we sought Vigilance help,” he added.
Meanwhile, Jeypore Vigilance SP Sashibhusan Mishra said investigation is on and search was made at the tainted official's residence D 14/2 in Bhoinagar area of Bhubaneswar and ancestral house at Sabulia under Rambha Police limits in Ganjam.