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Bhubaneswar: Soon after his expulsion from the BJD, Gopalpur MLA Pradeep Panigrahi on Sunday has given a clean chit to Akash Pathak, son of tainted IFS officer Abhay Pathak arrested by the vigilance two days ago on the charges of amassing assets worth crores disproportionate to his known sources of income.
Panigrahi said Akash, his would-be son-in-law was an alumni of Indian Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER) and was working in Romania but came back to look after his ailing mother.
"He was also a good scholar and had secured top marks in Graduate Management Admission Test (GMET) in 2016. After then, he was given a high-profile position in Tata Group which allowed him to travel in chartered flight," Panigrahi said.
Expelled BJD MLA Pradeep Panigrahi says Akash Pathak was ITER student and was working in Romania. He returned #Odisha to look after his ailing mother. He was selected for Tata Group and allowed to travel by charter flights by the company
— OTV (@otvnews) November 29, 2020
“If his son accompanied his father to some destinations in the chartered flight, what was wrong with that? Pradeep asked.
The MLA also alleged that the vigilance has taken all of his original documents instead of photocopies.
Similarly, he also backed the arrested IFS officer and claimed that Pathak is a best officer in Odisha, but unfortunately he has been neglected by the government of the State. Being a senior officer, he was also deprived of an official quarters in the city.
It may be noted Panigrahi's daughter was going to tie the knot with Akash and arrangements have also reached final stage for the family event.
Abhay Pathak and son Akash were arrested by the vigilance on charges of accumulating massive “ill-gotten” wealth. During a country-wide search operation, the vigilance found the officer’s disproportionate earnings were Rs 9.35 crore, about 435 per cent of known sources of his income.
(Edited By Suryakant Jena)
