Separate Vigilance teams led by 5 DSPs, 11 Inspectors and other staff conducted searches at six places, including Khordha, Dhenkanal and Angul districts. The raids (and searches) were carried out on the basis of the search warrants issued by the Special Judge, Vigilance in Dhenkanal.
So far, cash over Rs 6.28 lakh has been recovered. More assets are likely to be detected during the raids, said the Vigilance officials.
Sethy and his son had locked themselves inside their houses at Berhampur and Bhubaneswar respectively to evade action and obstruct the Vigilance team from conducting searches. The duo also reportedly showed non-cooperation even after being told about the search warrants.
The assets belonging to the former principal were detected following raids at five places linked to him and his family members in Khordha and Kalahandi districts.
The court ordered framing of charges against the former minister and asked him to appear before it personally on March 15.
The raids began on Friday following allegations that Patra has acquired assets which are disproportionate to his known sources of income.
The trend of low conviction rate for the past few years also points towards the influence wielded by the babus which help them slip due to lack of evidence despite having amassed huge piles of illicit wealth during their term of service.
Moreover, the sleuths have launched a search operation on his properties at Kalarahanga area in Bhubaneswar.
Under the Mo Sarkar initiative, the state government is collecting feedback by making random calls to the citizens visiting various government offices, including police stations.
The Vigilance department said that more property is likely to be unearthed and overall valuation to go up as further searches are underway.
During searches at the properties of ADM Mohapatra following information about his disproportionate assets, that lasted for 36 hours, the sleuths claimed to have stumbled upon assets worth around Rs 10 crore.
Separate teams of Vigilance officials comprising eight DSPs, two inspectors, five ASIs, and other staff had conducted search operations at seven places linked to the ADM on Friday.
The Odisha Vigilance on Wednesday arrested Manoranjan Nayak, posted as an Assistant Collector at Rourkela ADM Office in Sundargarh district, for allegedly amassing disproportionate assets worth Rs 2 crore.
Simultaneous raids were carried out at five places by four teams of the anti-corruption wing comprising officials from Rourkela, Sundargarh, Jharsuguda and Deogarh.
Ratnakar Sethy, ACSO at the Civil Supplies office in Nuapada owns Nataraj Palace Kalyan Mandap at Balisahi in Cuttack and paid insurance premium worth over Rs 1.13 crore.
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