Cuttack: Fifteen days after giving interim protection against arrest, Orissa High Court on Thursday refused to interfere against non-bailable warrant issued by a special vigilance court against IAS officer Vinod Kumar and four others who were convicted in connection with the 12-year-old multi-crore scam in state-owned Orissa Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC).

The scam had surfaced in August 2006 when the state vigilance stumbled upon large-scale illegal sanction and disbursal of loan during the incumbency of Vinod Kumar as managing director of ORHDC.

The special vigilance court in Bhubaneswar had convicted Kumar and five others on July 3.

While convicting all six, the trial court sentenced one of them - Sanjay Mohanty (ex-assistant manager of the ORHDC) to three years' rigorous imprisonment and imposed on him a fine of Rs 25,000.

As Kumar and four others were not present, the trial court did not pronounce their sentences and issued non-bailable warrant for their arrest.

All the five remain untraceable and challenged the warrant order in the high court and got interim protection against their arrest on July 10.

While disposing off their petitions on Thursday, the single-judge bench of Justice J.P. Das refused to interfere in the matter and directed Kumar and four others to appear before the trial court on August 4 for pronouncement of their sentence.

Justice Das expressed his disinclination while observing that the petitions of the five convicts challenging the non-bailable warrant for their arrest were "not maintainable". Justice Das, however, clarified that the interim protection against arrest of Kumar and the four others shall continue till their surrender before the trial court on August 4.

The four others included Purna Chandra Das, ex-executive director (technical), ORHDC, Pradeep Kumar Rout, ex-accounts officer, ORHDC, Chittaranjan Mallick, accountant (contractual), ORHDC and Ashis Kumar Nayak, secretary of Gramya Bikas Manch.