By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: Suspended IAS officer Bijay Ketan Upadhyaya, who has been arrested on graft charges, was produced before the Special Vigilance Court in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday.
A bank relationship manager, Santosh Pattanayak, who has been also arrested in this connection, was also produced before the court.
The court, however, rejected their bail plea and granted the Vigilance department to take the accused persons on a six-day remand. The accused duo will remain in Vigilance custody till January 5, 2020.
While being taken to the Special Vigilance Court, Upadhyaya told media persons that he has been falsely accused in the bribery case by some staff of his department including some top-level officials to settle scores.
Denying all the charges against him, Upadhyay said, “I didn’t receive any money from anybody.” “I am being framed by some staff of my department who were helped by some senior officials,” he added.
As per reports, the Odisha cadre IAS officer, who was posted as the Director of Horticulture department in Odisha was caught by vigilance sleuths on Dec 30, 2019 for accepting bribe of Rs 1 lakh. Later, he was suspended by the Odisha government.
Earlier Upadhyay’s father had also denied all the allegations against his son saying that he was framed by some of his jealous colleagues.
