The Orissa High Court on Wednesday clamped a stay on Congress MLA Mohammed Moquim’s conviction by a vigilance court in a loan fraud case.
The High Court had earlier admitted for adjudication Congress MLA Mohammed Moquim’s petition challenging the jail term pronounced by a special vigilance court case in Orissa Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC) corruption case and granted him interim bail.
It may be recalled here that Barabati-Cuttack MLA Moquim was sentenced to a 3-year rigorous imprisonment term on 29 September by the Cuttack special vigilance court in the OHRDC case. The court pronouncing the judgment in the 17-year-old corruption case had also sentenced former IAS officer Vinod Kumar and realtor Piyush Mohanty to three years in jail.
The HC order has come in as a relief for the lawmaker as he would have been disqualified as a member of the Orissa Legislative Assembly if the court had refused to stay the three-year rigorous imprisonment handed out by the vigilance court.
Granting stay on conviction, the HC posted the matter for further hearing on 22 February 2023, MLA’s counsel Pitambar Acharya said.
The OHRDC allegedly granted loans to builders and contractors unscrupulously without obtaining adequate collateral security and not conducting pre and post-sanction inspections. No follow-up action was allegedly taken to recover loans. As a result, repayments up to Rs.100 crores remained outstanding and their realization was remote. Kumar headed the OHRDC during 2000-01 when large-scale fiscal irregularities were allegedly perpetrated by the senior bureaucrat Kumar.