The Odisha Vigilance, on Friday, arrested three government officials, including Aswini Kumar Panda, who is the 2019-batch Odisha Administrative Service (OAS) topper, in connection with separate corruption cases across the state.
Panda, who is the Tahasildar of Bamra in Sambalpur district, was caught allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 15,000 through his office driver from a complainant for a land conversion case, informed a Vigilance official.
The complainant had been trying to get his agricultural land converted to homestead land for about a month.
“Panda has been apprehended for demanding and taking undue advantage of Rs 15,000 from the complainant for conversion of agricultural land to homestead land in a mutation case,” Odisha Vigilance said in a statement.
Initially, Panda had demanded Rs 20,000 for the work but later reduced the amount to Rs 15,000 after the complainant said he was unable to pay the full amount, Sambalpur SP (Vigilance) P K Dwivedi said.
Left with no option, the complainant approached vigilance authorities.
Acting on a tip-off, Vigilance officials set a trap and apprehended Panda’s office driver, P. Praveen Kumar, while he was accepting the bribe on behalf of Panda. Both the officer and the driver were taken into custody.
Subsequent searches were conducted at Panda’s residence and office which resulted in the recovery of Rs 4.73 lakh in cash and gold ornaments, the official added.
According to Vigilance officials, Panda, born on July 13, 1992, had topped the Odisha Civil Services examination in 2019. He then joined government service as a Training Reserve Officer (TRO) on December 30, 2021, in the office of the Balasore collector.
Then he joined as Shamakhunta tahasildar in Mayurbhanj district and was later transferred as Bamra tahasildar on July 1, 2025, they said.
In two other separate cases, Chittaranjan Rout, the District Labour Officer of Nayagarh, was arrested by the Vigilance officials for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 6,000 from a labourer in exchange for issuing 20 labour cards.
Additionally, Puspita Mahakud, a panchayat official, was arrested for allegedly misappropriating Rs 5.68 lakh in government funds, meant for disbursement to senior citizens under the old-age pension scheme.
