Bhubaneswar, July 26: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik suspended senior IAS officers Prashant Nayak and Vinod Kumar, both in the middle of controversies, this evening.

The two-line fax from the chief minister?s office informing the suspension of Nayak (48), science and technology secretary, and Kumar (42), additional secretary in the higher education department, did not give any reasons for the order. But sources in the CMO said the duo had to pay for the cases pending against them.

Earlier this month, a CBI court here issued summons to Nayak, a 1984-batch officer, asking him to appear before it on September 14 over his alleged involvement in a seven-year-old sex scandal.

Nayak and Indian Information Service officer Susanta Mohapatra had allegedly raped a young woman in an apartment on July 9, 1999. The court had already framed charges in the case and trial would begin next month.

On Monday, the vigilance bureau registered criminal cases against Kumar and seven others for irregularities in loan disbursement by the Orissa Rural Housing Development Corporation.

The anti-corruption department charged Kumar with conniving and forging documents to sanction the loan in 2001.

Kumar, then managing rector of the corporation, had sanctioned Rs 1.22 crore to two Rourkela-based businessmen who did not repay the loan. As a result, the principal with interest stood at Rs 2.46 in April this year, a major loss to the corporation.

Last year, Kumar was suspended after the department filed criminal cases against him for undue favours to some realtors.