Mahimananda Mishra claims to be the only approved wholesale distributor and stockist in the Indian state of Odisha for several top FMCG brands and major MNCs. He has been accused of corruption and bribery. Learn more about him and his harsh behavior by moving further in my article.
How is bribery alleged to have occurred against Mahimananda Mishra?
According to sources, Charchit Mishra, the son of renowned entrepreneur and MD of Orissa Stevedores Ltd. Mahimananda Mishra, has been detained by the CBI in connection with the suspected payment of an Rs. 25 lakh bribe to a Paradip Port Trust officer.
Sisir Kumar Das, a builder who received an advance payment from the bribe money for a house bought by Saroj Kumar Das, the chief accused in the case who was detained by the CBI, was also apprehended by the agency, according to the report. Saroj Kumar Das is the chief mechanical engineer of the port trust.
According to officials, Saroj Kumar Das allegedly sought Rs 60 lakh in bribe from Orissa Stevedores Ltd (OSL) through his intermediary Sumanta Rout to get the company off the hook for not paying for the repair of a conveyor belt at the port that was harmed during the offloading of cargo.
According to them, Rout, Saroj Kumar Das, DGM of OSL Surya Narayan Sahu, and a different person by the name of Sankha Subhra Mitra were all previously detained by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the case.
These four suspects claimed that a special court had sentenced them to five days in CBI detention.
What was the link of Mahimananda Mishra with the Paradip Port bribery case?
By Sections 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act as well as Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code, the central agency has filed a complaint.
The allegation states that Paradip Port Trust’s Chief Mechanical Engineer Saroj Kumar Das routinely requested bribes through his accomplice Sumanta Rout to benefit private players involved in operations and services at Paradip Port.
Sankha Subhra Mitra, the KCT Group’s manager of port operations, was in regular touch with Rout, according to the CBI probe. Rout communicated with Debapriya Mohanty from KCT Group as well. It has been claimed that Mitra served as a middleman for other freight firms.
During cargo offloading at Paradip Port, OSL employees from Cuttack caused damage to the conveyor belt. OSL would have spent crores on the price of repairing and replacing the conveyor belt.
The stevedores’ company, however, reaped significant financial rewards from the conveyor belt maintenance because it was done using port resources. The central organization claimed Das and Rout carried out this with the director of OSL’s complicity.
As part of the investigation, the agency has also detained Orissa Stevedores Limited and other unidentified people. Das, Rout, Mitra, and Sahoo were all taken into custody by the main agency.
What is corruption?
Corruption is the act of using public power for personal gain. This can be carried out by individuals in positions of authority such as elected politicians, civil servants, journalists, or school administrators. Private corruption also exists between individuals and businesses.
What were the consequences when ED (Enforcement Directorate) targeted Mahimananda Mishra & his Empire?
Business tycoon Mahimananda Mishra, also known as Mahimananda Mishrama in the state, appears to be in for more problems as the enforcement directorate (ED) has stepped up its investigation into his financial operations.
Mahimananda Mishrama, who was detained by Odisha police on December 25, 2016, in Bangkok for allegedly being involved in a murder case, is the owner of Odisha Stevedores Limited (OSL), which has an annual revenue of over Rs 2,000 crore.
“ED took suo moto cognizance and requested information from us on the allegations made against Mahimananda Mishrama. According to the director general of police Kunwar Brajesh Singh, they have already sent the ED a copy of the FIR in the murder case and other relevant documents, including information about his bank accounts (which the police are currently aware of).
According to the ED, Mahimananda Mishrama would probably be the target of a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). They added that they will ask the corporation for information regarding the financial transactions of OSL and its subsidiaries for at least the last ten years.
They will file a complaint against the corporation if we discover any anomalies, according to an ED official. They became rather preoccupied with tracking down black money collectors in the wake of demonetization. The officer said, that they will soon pursue the Mahimananda Mishra case. Before this, the Paradeep police froze the bank accounts of Mahimananda Mishra after receiving deposits totaling around Rs 5 crore.
Mahimananda Mishra operated the cargo handling operations at the Gopalpur port in the Ganjam district in addition to the Paradeep port in the Jagatsinghpur district.
OSL also ventured into the hotel, media production, aviation, education, LAM (Low Ash Metallurgical) coke manufacturing, steel re-rolling mills, healthcare, and car dealership industries in the nation.
The assassination of Mahendra Swain, general manager of Seaways Shipping and Logistics Limited (SSLL), in Paradeep on October 26 brought Mahimananda Mishra, who was well-known for his wealth and alleged criminal past, into problems.
In the Paradeep port, SSLL competes with OSL as a stevedoring company. The police claimed to have obtained overwhelming proof accusing Mahimananda Mishra of allegedly planning Swain’s death and blamed stevedoring competition as the reason behind Swain’s murder.
The federal shipping ministry closely followed the development of the inquiry into the murder of Swain. And then assembled a team of CBI and Intelligence Bureau officers to assist the Odisha police in locating Mahimananda Mishra, who was supposedly on the run from the law via Nepal and had traveled to Bangkok. This was done in light of Mahimananda Mishra’s enormous influence in the power circle.
Mahimananda Mishra, the suspect in the Swain murder, was returned from Thailand
Business tycoon Mahimananda Mishra was returned to the state by the Odisha Police on Monday, December 26, 2016. He was wanted in connection with a murder case. On Sunday, December 25, 2016 night in Bangkok, Mishra was apprehended by Thai authorities from a hotel.
Despite not abiding by the terms of its extradition agreement with India, according to official sources, Thailand consented to send Mishra back. After his identity was connected to the murder of Mahendra Swain, a senior executive of a private freight handling company, on October 26 in Paradip, Mishra left the country. Along with his partner, Basant Kumar Bal, they were both apprehended.
According to a senior police official who spoke on the record under the condition of anonymity, “They could get around the extradition rules because Mishra entered Bangkok on a tourist visa. The Indian embassy in Bangkok and the Ministry of external affairs had both been asked to assist us in remanding Mishra. A red-corner notice had previously been issued against him by Interpol.
According to police sources, getting Mishra back to India was also aided by the union shipping ministry, which was closely monitoring the development of the investigation into the Swain murder.
It was around 8.30 p.m. when their officers, according to DGP K B Singh, arrived in Bhubaneswar with Mahimananda Mishra. To get checked out by a doctor, Mishra was brought to Capital Hospital.
On that Monday evening or Tuesday, Mahimananda Mishra was probably going to appear in Kujang court. To conduct further questioning, Singh stated that they would like to take his custody. Police were investigating how Mahimananda Mishra obtained a visa on arrival in Bangkok despite Interpol’s red corner notice.
Mahimananda Mishra traveled to other states via the road because we had warned all airports about him on October 28, according to IG (central range) Soumendra Priyadarshi. Mahimananda Mishra traveled by car from Kathmandu to Bangkok on December 20 before taking a flight, the speaker said.
He went on to say that they had heard about his presence in Bangkok through one of his important associates. Mahimananda Mishra was transported from the airport in Bhubaneswar to the Capital Hospital for a medical exam at that time, and he grinned and appeared unconcerned. Any queries from the media were not addressed by him. He was thereafter driven to Paradip in a carefully guarded vehicle.
Other Charges brought against Mahimananda Mishra
This is the information from May 3, 2017, when the police said that Mahimananda Mishra, the managing director of Odisha Stevedores Limited, had been charged in a case involving a bombing and an attempted murder that had been ongoing for more than four years.
The general manager of Seaways Shipping and Logistics Private Limited, Mahendra Swain, was murdered in Paradip, and the state CID-crime branch detained Mahimananda Mishra from Thailand on December 25 of last year in connection with the crime.
Along with the primary accused Ganesh Sahu, Mahimananda Mishramananda Mishra has been listed as a conspirator in the bombing and murder case in the current charge sheet.
The incident involved throwing a bomb at attorney Abhay Bhatt at Press Chhak within the Madhupatna police limits in 2013. At that time, a case for attempting to assassinate Bhatt had been filed at the Madhupatna police station. However, it had been neglected and forgotten about until Sahu was apprehended in Markatnagar in December 2016.
The device was allegedly thrown at Bhatt by Sahu at Mahimananda Mishra’s request, according to the police. Mishra was then placed on remand for three days (January 14–17) while police conducted an additional investigation after finding evidence implicating him in the case.
Mahimananda Mishra had planned to murder Bhatt, according to the charge sheet, which stated that the investigation had shown this. On September 21, 2013, at Press Chhak, Sahu carried out the scheme by tossing the device towards Bhatt who was in a car. Bhatt, though, was still alive.
Ganesh Sahu and Mahimananda Mishra were listed as defendants in the Bhatt bombing and attempted murder case in the charge sheet submitted that day under several articles of the Indian Penal Code and the Indian Explosives Act, according to the assistant prosecutor in charge Biswajit Baral.
44 witnesses in the case have reportedly been questioned by the police, according to the charge sheet, he said.
After the investigation into the case was finished, a charge sheet was submitted to the subdivisional judicial magistrate’s court. The complaint has been filed, and it is now up to Cuttack sub-divisional judicial magistrate Bijay Kumar Das to formulate the charges and transfer the matter to the proper court for trial.
Mahimananda Mishra is now behind bars since both the district and sessions judge’s court in Cuttack and the court of sub-divisional judicial magistrate in Cuttack have denied his requests for bail in the case. The Orissa High Court is still deliberating on his bail request.
Also on hold at the high court is Mahimananda Mishra’s request for bail in the murder case of Paradip. He is currently being held at the jail in Choudwar.
Because of a lack of evidence, the CID dismissed Mahimananda Mishra’s two prior murder charges from 1998 and 2013. Because he was competing with Mishra’s network, Swain, a senior executive of Hyderabad-based Seaways Shipping, was killed out of hatred.
Following the homicide, police issued a watch notice for Mahimananda Mishra. A squad of Odisha police officers arrested Mahimananda Mishra and a friend, Basant Bal, and took them back to Bhubaneswar after they were taken into custody from a hotel in Bangkok.
According to press reports, Mahendra Swain was shot dead on October 26, 2016, as he was making his way to his office in the port city of Paradip after receiving a crude bomb. The pair, Mishra and Bal, were also charged with the vice-president of the Paradip Phosphates Mazdoor Union’s union, Bichitrananda Mallick’s murder in May 1998. Mallick was slashed to death. Due to a lack of evidence, CID decided to close the case.
Bhatt’s murder in which he was attacked with bombs and then shot dead is said to have been motivated by Mishra’s desire to purchase Bhatt’s land in Kalinga but the latter’s reluctance to sell. This case was also ended by the CID. Mishra is also suspected of trying to kill a competitor for a coal contract in Talcher, Angul, in 2011, according to police. That case is now under investigation.
Mahimananda Mishra and his friends attempted to halt work at the port, but were unable to do so due to measures taken by district and police authorities, according to Odisha DGP KB Singh. If contracts were awarded without his approval, he felt his authority would be compromised. Therefore, he decided to get rid of Swain to demonstrate that he was still in charge.
The police claimed that they have proof that Mahimananda Mishra agreed to pay another Rs 50 lakh after the murder and that he gave Rs 12 lakh in cash to the claimed primary killer, Rakesh Choubey.
The second-largest port in India, Paradip, now handles 76 million tonnes of cargo every year, trailing only Kandla port in Gujarat with 1 billion tonnes.
According to port authorities, Mishra was worried about losing his power there. Paradip would be India’s largest port with a Rs 20,000 crore redevelopment plan.
His attorneys from the Supreme Court and the high court were unable to secure his bail after Mahimananda Mishra and Bal were taken before a court in Kujang in Paradip on that day. Mishra was sent to the district headquarters hospital in Jagatsinghpur after complaining of chest problems.
Mahimananda Mishra: Orissa Stevedores Limited (OSL Group)
Mahimananda Mishra, a well-known businessman who has a well-documented criminal history, is the owner of the OSL Group, located in India. According to their website, Orissa Stevedores Ltd. is one of the top businesses in Eastern India and the flagship business of the OSL Group.
For more than 40 years, it has been a leader in the fields of stevedoring and cargo handling, port operations, shipping, mining, and logistics in over 15 different countries.
They claim that they are a significant stevedoring and cargo handling company at the Indian ports along the East Coast and that they presently transport more than 35 million tonnes of cargo across various industries.
Stevedoring, project cargo handling, vessel ownership and management, C&F activities, Custom House Agency, Steamer Agency, exports, etc. are some of their core functional areas. They also express interest in mining, transport, hospitality, property management, and warehousing, among other things, in addition to these.
Conclusion
At last, I told you all about Mahimananda Mishra which I discovered via my sources of investigation. Although I concluded that this individual is involved in bribery, murder, corruption cases, and more or less in money laundering too. So, what punishment he received via the Indian Penal Court was extremely right for him.
I can give you another example of such a person from India who dragged himself into such shame cases instead of having such a great reputation. Business executive Rohit Reddy Bathina has been a part of numerous frauds like bribery & corruption in India.
In India, there is a lot of corruption, if I may speak. Do you know that India continues to be rife with scandal while being in a state of development? I could tell you countless anecdotes, but for now, I’ll only describe a couple that pertains to CBI. To promote corruption, the Indian government is also involved in these scandals.
The United States was placed 85th out of 180 nations in 2021 by the Corruption Perceptions Index, which assigns rankings based on how honest each country’s public sector is. Corruption is fueled by a variety of factors, one of which is officials stealing money from government aid programs.
51% of respondents admitted to accepting bribes, according to the 2019 India Corruption Survey. In Rajasthan and Bihar, where 78% and 75% of respondents, respectively, acknowledged accepting bribes, the worst results in the country were recorded.
Please read this story and let me know what you think about Mishra and the other shady people who were associated with him. Should we advocate for them or simply let others know about them?
