3 min readBhubaneswarMar 20, 2026 07:05 AM IST
Even after his retirement from government service in 2019, Pradip Kumar Mohanty continued to work at the Block Education Office (BEO) at Korei in Odisha’s Jajpur district following a re-engagement. He is accused of having run a scam, allegedly involving his family members, and of having embezzled government funds worth Rs 5.56 crore.
According to officials, 67-year-old Mohanty had been on the run for two months after the case was detected by the Vigilance department. On Thursday, he was arrested along with his wife, Gitarani. His 35-year-old son, banker Matruprasad Mohanty, who is the branch head of Jana Small Finance Bank in Bhadrak district, was arrested a day earlier.
Officials said Mohanty started working as a teacher, was promoted to headmaster later, and was eventually posted in the BEO office in 2018 to oversee administrative work.
Dealing with salary-related matters of school teachers at the BEO office, Mohanty is alleged to have illegally accessed the Human Resource Management System (HRMS) — the online platform for government employees — and is accused of having manipulated the IDs of 13 retired teachers receiving pension from the government.
According to Vigilance officials, Mohanty allegedly managed to manipulate the records of the retired teachers, including their date of birth, apparently to show these retirees as active in service. He is also accused of having altered their bank details and generated salary bills. He allegedly added the bank details of his family members and continued to draw salaries in those accounts for six years.
“As part of his job, he prepared monthly salary bills in their names. The funds were routed through a series of transactions into accounts held by him and his family members across various branches of the State Bank of India (SBI),” said a Vigilance official.
The duration of the fraud spanned nearly six years from November 2018 to September 2024.
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Based on intelligence inputs and using other sources, Vigilance verified the details, following which they started zeroing in on the scam allegedly run by Mohanty’s family. Vigilance sleuths have also registered a case and started an investigation into the matter.
Officials said Mohanty and his wife later went on the run, changing locations in Odisha and West Bengal frequently. Suspecting them to be in Kolkata, a Vigilance team conducted raids in the city on Wednesday night, but the husband-wife duo managed to escape, officials said.
The couple were nabbed from a hotel in Bhadrak’s Charampa early on Thursday morning. A clerk has also been arrested by the Vigilance in connection with the matter.
