Odia IAS officer to be prosecuted in INX Media case

Bhubaneswar/New Delhi: An Odia IAS officer, Anup K Pujari, will be prosecuted in connection with the FIPB clearance granted to INX Media. Pujari was the secretary of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) between 2006 and 2010.

The central government has issued a sanction to the CBI to prosecute Pujari, former NITI Aayog CEO Sindhushree Kullar, the then director of the Finance Ministry Prabodh Saxena, and former undersecretary of the Department of Economic Affairs, Rabindra Prasad in the INX Media case.

The government had sanctioned the prosecution of former finance minister P Chidambaram in February this year.

An FIR was filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on May 15, 2017, alleging irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds in 2007 when Chidambaram was the finance minister in the UPA government.

INX Media was once owned by Peter and Indrani Mukherjea, prime suspects in this money laundering and corruption case.

(With PTI inputs)