Odisha:Topper arrested while accepting bribe, Rs 4.73 lakh recovered

In Odisha, three government officers were apprehended during a simultaneous Vigilance operation in Sambalpur, Mayurbhanj and Nayagarh districts on Friday. Those arrested are Bamra Tehsildar Aswini Kumar Panda, an OAS officer, Nayagarh District Labour Officer (DLO) Chittaranjan Rout, and former PEO of Luhasila GP under Bijatola block Puspita Mahakud.
The Odisha Vigilance sleuths caught the Odisha Administrative Service(OAS) 2019 exam topper Ashwini Kumar Panda, serving as Tehsildar of Bamra in Sambalpur, while accepting a Rs 15,000 bribe for land mutation. They seized Rs 4.73 lakh during searches at the residence of OAS officer Panda in Bhubaneswar. As per information, Panda, who topped the Odisha Civil Services exam in 2019, was arrested earlier in the day after his office driver was caught red-handed while accepting a Rs 15,000 bribe on his behalf. The bribe was allegedly demanded for converting agricultural land into homestead land in a mutation case.
Panda entered into government service as Training Reserve Officer on December 30, 2021, in the office of Balasore Collector. He was then posted at Shamakhunta in Mayurbhanj as Tehsildar on June 1, 2023, and transferred to Bamra on July 1, 2025. He had cleared the exam in his first attempt without any coaching. He did his schooling from Jana Kalyan High School near his native place and Plus II in Science from Ravenshaw University in Cuttack. He then pursued BTech in Mechanical Engineering from a private college in Berhampur and worked in a private company for three years in Delhi before returning home in 2018 to prepare for competitive exams.
In Nayagarh, Rout was caught while accepting Rs 6,000 from a labourer. He had sought the bribe to issue labour cards to 20 labourers, leading to a delay of nearly a year. The entire tainted bribe money has been recovered and seized from the DLO. The release said Rout was under the Vigilance scanner following repeated bribery allegations. Simultaneous searches are currently underway at three locations linked to him to ascertain whether he has accumulated assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.
Mahakud, who was attached to the office of Rairangpur Sub-Collector in Mayurbhanj was nabbed for embezzling government funds to the tune of Rs 5,68,950 meant for distribution to senior citizens under the Old Age Pension scheme.