Cuttack, Oct. 30: The vigilance department has registered criminal cases against 18 persons, most of them employees of the Cuttack and Bhubaneswar development authorities, for their alleged involvement in the allotment of houses and plots through the discretionary quota.

Five persons who had been allotted plots have also been slapped with criminal cases.

"We have registered the cases based on the ongoing investigation into the discretionary quota case," vigilance director K.B. Singh told The Telegraph today. "The probe is on as we are yet to get some documents from various government offices."

Singh said cases would be registered against those officials against whom evidence would come up during the subsequent phases of investigation.

Official sources said the vigilance had registered cases against four OAS officers appointed in the rank of allotment officers in Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA). They are Satyabrata Rout, Benudhar Behera, Reena Mohapatra and Surendra Nath Nanda.

Besides, cases have been registered against eight section officers and dealing assistants of the BDA.

Three OAS rank officers - Ramchandra Hansda, Ramakant Nath and Sukant Kishore Mohanty of Cuttack - all former land allotment officers of Cuttack Development Authority (CDA) also face criminal cases. Besides, cases have been lodged against one junior assistant, one section officer and a former engineer member secretary of the CDA.

Police sources said these government officials had allegedly helped various people to conceal information and submit false facts to seek the benefits.

The state government had ordered a vigilance probe after the Taradatt committee had recommended action against officials for indulging in irregularities in the allotments of nearly 6,001 plots from 1995 in BDA, CDA and Odisha State Housing Board.

The government had constituted the task force after the comptroller and auditor-general had come down heavily against the state government for misusing the discretionary quota.