Balangir, Sept. 10: The state government today suspended Debraj Mishra, an IAS officer, holding the director’s post of the Other Backward Classes department.
He allegedly committed large-scale irregularities in the recruitment of revenue officials during his tenure as the collector of Balangir district.
Chief minister Naveen Patnaik has also asked the state vigilance department to register a criminal case against Mishra. The crime branch, which investigated the matter, has registered a case against the former collector, four OAS officers and a senior clerk for their alleged role in the appointment of revenue inspectors, assistant revenue inspectors and amins in the district.
The four OAS officers, who have been accused of being part of the scam, are Anita Panda, Binod Bihari Das, Raghunath Mundari and Ripunath Suna. The clerk was identified as Niranjan Tripathy. Mishra had been the Balangir district collector from August 2012 to July 2013 when there were allegations of large-scale irregularities in the appointment of junior revenue officials. The revenue divisional commissioner (north) had conducted a probe into the allegations, and subsequently, the crime branch took over the case.
Official sources said that on December 17, 2011, the district administration placed advertisements inviting applications from candidates for 54 posts. Subsequently, the number of vacancies was increased to 63. Five days before the written examination, the number of vacant posts was increased to 166. Incidentally, the order issued on June 4 last year from the collector’s office was not published in the newspapers.
The candidates were not asked to apply afresh though there was a provision that whenever there is an increase in the number of posts, it should be published in the newspapers and fresh candidates should be asked to apply.
Some candidates, who had taken the tests, collected information under the RTI about the exam process and detected irregularities.
Sudhir Sandh, who had taken the tests, said some selected candidates were given full marks in mathematics, while two questions in the subject paper were wrong.