Clerk gets 1-year RI for corruption

BHUBANESWAR:  A CBI court on Saturday awarded one year rigorous imprisonment (RI) to former upper division clerk working with Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), Bhubaneswar, in connection with a corruption case registered against him.

The accused has been identified as Bibhisan Nayak of Keonjhar district. He was staying in Sisupalgarh area here. Nilakantha Mansingh of Begunia block had applied for a loan of `49.58 lakh under Prime Minister Employment Generation Programme ((PMEGP). Nayak, who was then working as an upper division clerk with KVIC in Bhubaneswar, had demanded `5,000 bribe from Mansingh for processing the loan file and getting loan amount sanctioned.

Subsequently, Mansingh had lodged a complaint with the CBI, following which the Central agency had registered a case on August 4, 2013. CBI nabbed Nayak on August 5, 2013, while accepting `5,000 bribe in his office at Baramunda here. The Central agency later filed the chargesheet of the case on November 29, 2013. Special Judge, CBI, Bhubaneswar, Loknath Mohapatra, awarded one year RI and also imposed a fine of `5,000 and RI of six months besides a fine of `3,000 for the offence. Both, the sentences will run concurrently.

About 11 witnesses and 80 documents were examined by the court before pronouncing the verdict. Rajeswar Hota was the CBI’s Public Prosecutor. In January 2018, Nayak was terminated from the service as part of the departmental proceedings against him in connection with the incident.