Bhubaneswar, Sept. 12 -- Odisha Vigilance sleuths today apprehended two senior government officials in separate incidents of bribery.
In the first case, Aswini Kumar Panda, OAS, Tahasildar of Bamra, was caught red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 15,000 from a complainant for converting agricultural land to homestead land in a mutation case.
According to Vigilance sources, the complainant had been pursuing the land conversion for nearly a month. Panda initially demanded Rs 20,000 for issuing the Record of Rights (RoR).
When the complainant expressed his inability to pay the full amount, Panda reduced the demand to Rs 15,000 and threatened to withhold the conversion if the bribe was not paid.
Left with no option, the complainant appr...