Bhubaneswar: The vigilance officials on Sunday conducted raid at Gopalpur MLA Pradeep Panigrahi Bhubaneswar residence, his relatives and associate in connection with a case of possessing disproportionate assets.
The raids followed “specific and credible” information that Panigrahi had acquired movable and immovable properties disproportionate to his known sources of income during May 2009 to November 2020.
The vigilance sleuths conducts simultaneous raids at 15 places associated with Gopalpur MLA Pradeep Panigrahi.
In Dec, 2020, the Crime branch of Odisha Police arrested Pradeep Kumar Panigrahy in connection with a case registered at the Cyber Police Station.
Panigrahi was arrested under multiple sections 419/420/467/468/469/471/120-B IPC r/w sec 66 C/66 D of IT Act 2000 as there is sufficient prima facie evidence against him in this case.
Evidence has come to light that Panigrahi collected money from people on behalf of Akash Kumar Pathak on the false promise of providing them jobs in Tata Company. “This case relates to impersonation, cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and other cyber offences by Akash Kumar Pathak, who identified himself as in-charge Managing Director of Tata Motors passenger car division and son of former IFS officer Abhay Pathak, who was given compulsory retirement due to corruption charges. Panigrahi’s daughter was scheduled to get married to Akash in December last year at a palace hotel at Udaipur.
Panigrahi was sent to Jharpada Jail after the court rejected his bail application.
Later, Pradeep Panigrahy was released on bail on June 12,2021 after spending little over seven months in jail in a case of cheating youths with fake promises of jobs in Tata Motors.
