Odishatv Bureau

Bhubaneswar: The State Labour department will soon issue show cause notice to Motilal Gouda, the arrested former assistant director of the Directorate of Factories and Boilers, for allegedly causing a loss of Rs 63 lakh to the Odisha government by issuing a fake gazette notification.

Official sources said the notice will be issued against Gouda under Rule-15 of OCS (CC&A) Rules 1962.

The labour commissioner has been given the charge of probing the matter, the sources added.

Currently Gouda is on a four day remand of Crime Branch which ends on Thursday.

Last Monday, the Sub Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM) court had allowed the Crime Branch of Odisha police to take Gouda on a six-day remand a day after he was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch from Vizianagaram for embezzlement to the tune of Rs 63 lakh.

In the fake notification issued in October, 2015, Gouda had asked industries in the State to get the health check-ups of their staff done at one of the five ’empanelled’ pathology laboratories. Based on this notification, he even managed to sign a contract with Navaratna PSU Nalco for Rs 63 lakh.

Besides, Gouda was also in the process of signing another contract worth Rs 1.02 crore with Nalco when the matter came to the fore and a complaint was registered with the investigating agency.

On November 17, 2015, the State government had removed 408 medical officers from government service for remaining ‘absent from duty for a long period unauthorisedly and willfully.’ Gouda’s name had appeared in the list.

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