Bhubaneswar: The CBI has served notices to an IAS officer and retired bureaucrat in connection with the money laundering scam by Seashore, the deposit collection company.

The central agency has asked both of them to appear before it on Monday.

Though the exact motive behind the notice could not be ascertained, sources in the CBI said both of them had been asked to come in connection to an MoU between the Odisha government and the Seashore Group of Companies to promote tourism in the state.

The state government had signed MoUs with Seashore for development of tourist spots. The group was also entrusted with developing tourism on the banks of the Mahanadi in Cuttack. Both the bureaucrats were then posted in the tourism department.

The investigating agency, in August 2016, had quizzed the personal assistant (political) of then tourism minister Debiprasad Mishra in this connection. The BJD leader, however, had claimed that the government followed the norms while allowing the group to start boating facilities in the Mahanadi.

Last October, the CBI arrested former managing director of state-owned Agricultural Promotion and Investment Corporation of Odisha Limited P.K. Hota for his alleged links with the group. Seashore allegedly collected around Rs 1,200 crore from thousands of investors promising them 24 per cent interest a year.

The agency has interrogated several bureaucrats on the basis of diaries seized from Subhankar Naik, another accused. The diaries revealed Naik's nexus with Seashore chief Prashant Dash and senior police officers and bureaucrats in the state government. Naik allegedly played the role of middleman between Dash and the government officials.