Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s elder brother Soumendra Pradhan, booked by the State Vigilance police last week on the charge of irregularities in his cooking gas agency in Talcher of Angul district, was on Tuesday granted an interim protection by the Orissa HC.
Justice Debabrata Dash, taking up Soumendra Pradhan’s anticipatory bail application, ordered the Vigilance police not to arrest him until further orders and asked the prosecution to submit the case diary (CD) in the court within two weeks.
It may be mentioned that during a series of surprise raids in petrol and cooking gas depots recently, Vigilance officials had booked Soumendra and three other employees of his agency under several Sections of IPC, Essential Commodities Act and Indian Explosives Act. The Vigilance personnel 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.