Bhubaneswar, April 10: The development authority has finally sprung into action and issued notices to six senior IAS officers, asking them to appear before it and explain their case, almost two years after the discretionary quota scandal broke.

The Bhubaneswar Development Authority has also fired a warning to the officers and said that failure to depose before it on the dates assigned would compel it to take suo moto action against them according to the provisions of law.

However, it has shown some leniency and made allowances of sending replies through their authorised representatives in case the officers were unable to appear personally.

The six IAS officers who have been served notices are Suresh Mohapatra (forest and environment secretary), Pra-deep Jena (principal secretary of the water resources department), Vishal Dev (commissioner-cum-secretary for the women and child development department), Raj Kumar Sharma (steel and mines department principal secretary), Prashant Nayak (CMD, Industrial Development Corporation of Odisha) and Satyabrata Sahu, who is currently on central deputation and working as joint secretary at the ministry of water and sanitation.

Housing and urban development minister Pushpendra Singh Deo said: "The state government set up a task force on August 2, 2014, to review all the allotments of land, houses and flats of the Bhubaneswar Development Authority to ineligible persons. The inquiry is on at the moment and we will take action against those who have taken advantage of the discretionary quota. The development authority will hear the case and they will take action on the basis of the findings."

The Telegraph, on July 23, 2014, had published a report on the misuse of discretionary quota, which eventually forced the state government to appoint a task force under the then additional chief secretary Taradatt to look into the issue.

The report of the task force was approved by the state cabinet in December 2014 and is now in the public domain. The cabinet had approved, in principle, that criminal cases be lodged against the persons who had taken possession of the land and flats by giving false affidavits. On the basis of the report, the government has decided to cancel all allotments made under the discretionary quota since January 1, 1995.

Sources said nearly 1,791 plots and houses had been distributed to people after 1995 under the discretionary quota. The Bhubaneswar Development Authority had distributed 803 houses, while the Cuttak Development Authority and the housing board had distributed 921 and 67 houses and plots, respectively.