Cuttack: Former IAS officer Vinod Kumar, one of the key accused in the rural housing scam after the 1999 Super Cyclone in Odisha, was on Thursday granted bail by the Orissa High Court.
Accepting the petition challenging the verdict of the special Vigilance court, the court directed the lower court to fix the bail conditions.
The High Court also stayed the vigilance court’s order imposing penalty on Vinod Kumar in the ORHDC case.
Notably, on Wednesday, the court granted bail to one of the convicts — Peeyushdhari Mohanty, the Director of Metro Builders Pvt Ltd, in connection with the case.
On October 10, Congress MLA Mohammed Moquim, who was convicted in the case, was granted bail from the Orissa High Court.
On September 29, the Vigilance Court in Bhubaneswar had awarded three years of rigorous imprisonment to four — Barabati-Cuttack legislator Mohammed Moquim, former IAS officer Vinod Kumar, Metro Builder’s Peeyushdhari Mohanty and former company secretary of ORHDC Swosti Ranjan Mohapatra — for loan scam in the ORHDC.
The court convicted all four persons and Metro Builders Private Limited under Section 13 (2) r/w 13(I) (D) of Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 and Section 120-B/468/471 of the IPC. The court also imposed a penalty of Rs 50,000 each on the convicted persons. Non-payment of the penalty amount would invite another six months of jail term.
Worth mentioning, former IAS officer Vinod Kumar, during his tenure as the managing director of Odisha Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC) in 1999, the 1989-batch IAS officer had sanctioned housing funds to the tune of Rs 33.34 crore through unfair means when rural housing was taken up in a big scale after the Super Cyclone.
He is also accused of granting loans to real estate firms/contractors and NGOs without verifying house construction/reconstruction after the Super Cyclone. Sources said the basic norms of inspection, verification and collaterals were flouted in disbursal of loans during 2000-01.
In 2018, the Special Vigilance Court had convicted Kumar for financial irregularities in the ORHDC and sentenced him to three years of imprisonment. The State government had slapped 27 Vigilance cases against Kumar of which, he has been convicted in two.
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