A special vacation bench of the Orissa High Court granted anticipatory bail to Soumendra Pradhan, elder brother of Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, on Tuesday.
Soumendra, who owns a cooking gas agency at Talcher of Angul district, was booked by the Vigilance police in January this year for alleged “irregularities” in his agency. Soumendra and three employees of the agency are charged under several sections of IPC, Essential Commodities Act and India Explosive Act.
Justice Debabrata Dash, who had granted an interim protection to Soumendra on January 24, 2017 by asking the Vigilance police not to arrest him until further orders, on Tuesday allowed his anticipatory bail. The court, however, asked Soumendra to cooperate with the investigating police officer of the case as and when required.
The Vigilance police had detected shortage of 40 filled gas cylinders in Soumendra’s agency. The missing cylinders, issued in the names of different consumers, were allegedly sold to a nearby godown owner without any valid documents. The filled cylinders were later recovered from the godown.