Bhubaneswar: Gopalpur MLA Pardeep Panigrahi was Saturday released from Jharpada jail here after six months. The High Court had Friday granted bail in the alleged job fraud case.
Panigrahi was arrested by Crime Branch (CB) sleuths in connection with a job fraud case (26/2020) December 3, 2020. The SDJM court here had sent Panigrahi to 14-day judicial custody after rejecting his bail plea. Later, five other cases (four at Golanthara and one at Baidyanathpur police station) were registered against him.
The High Court granted him bail in the last case registered with Golanthara police station in which the complainant accused Panigrahi of taking Rs 2 lakh on the pretext of providing him a job in Tata. He reportedly deposited an amount to the tune of Rs 69.45 lakh to get out of the jail as per the directions of HC.
The court had granted him bail in several other cases registered with the Golanthara police June 1. The HC granted him conditional bail in the case registered with the CB February 24.
Notably, Panigrahi was accused of collecting money from several job aspirants in Gopalpur on behalf of Akash Pathak, main accused in the Tata Motors job fraud. The officials of Tata Motors had lodged a case with CB’s cyber cell alleging Akash of defrauding around 69 job seekers by impersonating Managing Director of the said company.
PNN