India News | HC Relief for Odisha Cong MLA in Loan Fraud Case
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The Orissa High Court on Monday granted relief to Congress legislator Mohammed Moquim, ordering an interim stay on the three-year imprisonment awarded to him by a special vigilance court in a housing loan fraud case.
Cuttack, Oct 10 (PTI) The Orissa High Court on Monday granted relief to Congress legislator Mohammed Moquim, ordering an interim stay on the three-year imprisonment awarded to him by a special vigilance court in a housing loan fraud case.
The vigilance court had on September 29 sentenced the Cuttack-Barabati legislator to three years of rigorous imprisonment in the fraud case.
A single-judge bench of Justice B P Routray, allowing a plea challenging the vigilance court order, also granted Moquim regular bail.
The bench directed him to furnish a bail bond of Rs 1 lakh with two sureties of like amount, said the MLA's counsel Pitambar Acharya.
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Seeking case records from the lower court, the high court adjourned the matter for hearing again on October 13.
Special Vigilance Court Judge Satya Narayan Sarangi, in his judgment last month, had convicted Moquim and three others, including former IAS officer Vinod Kumar, holding them guilty of criminal misconduct, forgery, cheating, conspiracy and showing undue official favours in releasing funds from Odisha Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC) under the guise of loans meant for the poor.
They were awarded three years' rigorous imprisonment and was directed to pay a fine of Rs 50,000 each for causing pecuniary loss to the state-run ORHDC.
Moquim moved the high court seeking suspension of his conviction.
Notably, BJP leader and senior advocate of the High Court, Pitambar Acharya, represented the MLA.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)