Jayapur: Odisha Vigilance on Saturday arrested Satyanarayan Sethy, assistant executive engineer of Kotpad block in Koraput district, for allegedly amassing assets far beyond his known sources of income. He is set to be produced before the Special Judge, Vigilance, Jayapur.
The arrest followed simultaneous raids conducted on Friday at seven locations linked to Sethy across Koraput, Khurda, and Kendrapada districts. Locations raided included his rented house at Parabeda, Jeypore; government residence and office in Kotpad; a flat in Jatni (Khurda); and his ancestral home at Derabish, Kendrapada.
Searches revealed a significant amount of immovable and movable assets that Sethy and his family could not satisfactorily account for. These include two 2BHK flats — one in Jatni (Hi-Tech Plaza) and another allegedly benami flat in Jeypore registered in the name of a close associate, three farms spanning 14 acres in Taragaon under Borigumma tehsil (one 10 acres with mango and eucalyptus plantations, another 4.35 acres with eucalyptus), 49 high-value plots in Jeypore, Borigumma, Kotpad, and Pottangi tehsils, of which 17 are suspected to be benami (purchased in the name of relatives).
Other properties include gold weighing approximately 940 grams and silver around 2.5 kg, cash of Rs 5.48 lakh, bank and other deposits exceeding Rs 60.92 lakh, household articles valued at around Rs 5.52 lakh, a benami Tata Harrier SUV and a benami two-wheeler.
Vigilance officials noted that the valuation of properties is underway by their technical wing, with the total assets estimated in crores. Sethy, who joined government service as a Junior Engineer in January 1998 with a modest initial salary of Rs 7,100, was promoted to AEE in September 2025.