More than five years after being put behind the bar in a bribery case, a corrupt Odisha administrative officer was again remanded to jail custody on Saturday for amassing movable and immovable assets of more than Rs 5.21 crore, a whopping 506 per cent of his known sources of income.

The Odisha Administrative Service (OAS) officer and Additional Sub-Collector of Nabarangpur, Prasanta Kumar Rout has been found in possession of huge disproportionate assets including cash worth Rs 3,02,30,800 (Rs 3.02  crore) during a marathon raid yesterday.

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He was in possession of disproportionate assets worth Rs 5,21,09,659 (506 per cent of his known sources of income), which he could not account for satisfactorily. Booked under Section 13(2), 13(1)(b)/12 Prevention of Corruption Act, 2018, he was today remanded to judicial custody, said vigilance officials.

Earlier during his tenure as BDO at Bisra Block, he was arrested on 6 November, 2018 for taking Rs 1 lakh bribe. Then he was placed under suspension and was reinstated on January 18, 2020 as the Additional Sub-Collector of Nabarangpur.

It may be recalled here that the accused officer’s wife allegedly threw six cash-stashed cartons to their neighbour’s terrace at Kanan Vihar here and requested them to hide the currency, when the personnel of the Vigilance wing arrived there, the officials said.

The accused officer owned among other things a double storeyed building at Bhubaneswar, five plots including four in the prime area of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar and one benami plot at Umerkote in Nabarangpur district.

“This is the second biggest recovery of cash from a government official in the state. In April 2022, we had recovered Rs 3.41-crore cash during raids on properties of Kartikeswar Roul, who was posted as an assistant engineer in Minor Irrigation Division in Ganjam district,” an official statement issued by the Vigilance Department said.

It may be noted here that the State Vigilance on Friday arrested social welfare officer Jayanti Behera, posted in the Department of Woman and child development in Bhubaneswar, for allegedly possessing disproportionate assets to the tune of about Rs 4 crore.