The State Government on Wednesday suspended arrested Athagarh Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Sudhansu Sekhar Mishra. Vigilance sleuths had arrested him after detecting properties worth Rs 6 crore disproportionate to known sources of his income on February 24.
“Arrested DFO Sudhansu Mishra was placed under suspension for not being able to explain his huge assets,” said Forests and Environment Department Principal Secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra.
Meanwhile, Vigilance Director Dr RP Sharma said Mishra, whose three-day Vigilance remand ended last week, is not cooperating with the investigating officials.
Mishra, on the other hand, claimed that the seized money belonged to his father-in-law who made that money from land sales. “Vigilance plans to get him on another three-day remand for further investigation,” added Sharma.
Notably, Vigilance had raided various houses and apartments of Mishra in Bhubaneswar, Balangir, Cuttack, Bhawanipatna, Sambalpur, Brahmapur, Sonepur and Puri and had detected assets worth Rs 6 crore, including Rs 1 crore of cash on February 24.
He was subsequently arrested on February 25 and taken on a three-day remand the next day for questioning. Mishra joined the Odisha Forest Service in 1987 as a Class-II officer as Assistant Conservator of Forest (ACF). He was promoted to Class-I rank in May 2007 and posted at different places as DFO. He was posted as DFO in Angul and Brahmapur before he was given posting at Athagarh four months ago.