Dhenkanal: Minister of Steel & Mines and BJD MLA from Kamakhyanagar Prafulla Mallick has courted controversy after it was alleged that his daughter-in-law drew salary from a college without attending office for two years.
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The matter came to the fore after a response to an RTI query revealed that the Minister allegedly abused his powers and compelled the authorities of Kamakhyanagar College in Dhenkanal district to show undue favours to his daughter-in-law.
Mallick’s daughter-in-law Lipsa Pradhan had allegedly received her salary every month from 2016 to 2018, even during her absence from the college during this period.
According to RTI activist Jayakrushna Behera, Pradhan is pursuing her PhD with Utkal University in Bhubaneswar.
However, the Controller of Examinations at Utkal University denied the existence of Pradhan’s name in the PhD registry.
“This is to inform you that on verification of records on the subject regarding PhD registration of Lipsa Pradhan, Lecturer in Zoology, Kamakhyanagar Mahavidyalaya, no such name is found in the PhD registration register for the academic session 2015-16 and 2016-17,” mentioned the reply of the Examination Controller.
On the other hand, the Minister rubbished the allegations while dubbing them ‘baseless’.
“My daughter-in-law has conducted classes at the college regularly and also evaluated examination answer sheets. The records of her evaluating the sheets cannot be falsified. The allegations are concocted and baseless,” Mallick said.
PNN