Prafulla Mishra’s residence. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, Aug. 5: The court of the special judge, vigilance, today pasted a copy of the summons at the official residence of senior IAS officer Prafulla Chandra Mishra for failing to appear before the court.

Mishra has been accused of indulging in improprieties during his tenure as chairman-cum-managing director of the state-run Orissa State Beverage Corporation (OSBC) in 2003. At present, he is the commissioner, consolidation, in the revenue department.

“The court of the special judge, vigilance (Bhubanes-war), had ordered for the summons to be served by affixing a copy in some conspicuous part of his official residence after summons could not be served in the ordinary way,” superintendent of police (vigilance) Shasibhusan Mishra told The Telegraph.

The 1982-batch IAS officer was summoned to appear in person before the court on Saturday in connection with one of the three criminal cases against him on charges of corruption.

“Though the court had issued as many as five summonses in the past six months, he has been keeping out of the way to avoid receiving those,” SP (vigilance) Mishra said.

However, Mishra said: “I have not received any summons from the court. I heard that 10 days ago, a summons had reached the board of revenue office. But the summons had my designation wrong and hence it was returned.”

He said the summonses were issued in connection with the case in which a chargesheet was filed against Mishra for showing undue favour to a liquor manufacturer and suppliers by printing excise adhesive labels in 2002-03.

The chargesheet was filed in December 2009. The court of the special judge, vigilance (Bhubaneswar), had taken cognisance and the case has since been pending before it.

Chargesheets in the case had also been filed against erstwhile OSBC general manager Harish Kumar Mishra and GM (technical) Subarna Nayak.

In two other cases, official sources said investigation had been completed but chargesheets had not been filed.

One case was registered against Mishra for allegedly showing undue official favour to the manufacturers by not constituting a price fixation committee and accepting the price offered by the manufacturer and suppliers to derive pecuniary advantage. Another case was registered against him for allegedly purchasing computers at higher rates by showing undue favour to a private company and abusing his official position.

The state government had sought the necessary sanction of the Centre to proceed against him in the two cases, vigilance officials said.