Jajpur, Sept 25: Odisha vigilance on Friday apprehended Prasanna Kumar Sahani, Junior Revenue Assistant (JRA) at the sub-collector’s office, Jajpur, while allegedly accepting a bribe of ₹40,000  from an applicant for processing permission to purchase 16 decimals of land belonging to an SC category landowner.

As per the government law, permission is required to purchase land from SC/ST owners.

The applicant had applied for permission on November 29, 2025, to purchase the land in favour of his mother. Sahani allegedly demanded ₹ 48,000 and later reduced it to ₹ 40,000 as the applicant expressed his reluctance to pay the amount.

After the applicant registered a complaint, Vigilance officials today laid a trap and caught him red handed in his office room while accepting the bribe. The entire bribe amount was recovered and seized.

The Vigilance sleuths also conducted simultaneous searches at two locations linked to the accused to investigate possible disproportionate assets.

A case has been registered under section 7 of Prevention of Corruption (amendment) Act 2018.