The Odisha High Court has directed the Director General of Police to ensure the personal appearance of the Superintendent of Police (SP) of and Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) of the district before it on Friday in a case related to the arrest of Subarnapur ADM Ashok Bag.
The police had arrested Bag on the basis of the statement recorded by a displaced person of the lower Indra Irrigation Project (lIIP), which claimed that Bag as land Acquisition Officer (lAO) was involved in the fraudulent payment of rehabilitation and resettlement assistance to fake displaced persons (DPs).
The HC has also directed the inspectors in charge (IICs) of Khariar and Komna police stations (PS) to appear the same day to explain their stand on Bag’s arrest.
A two-judge bench comprising Justices P Mohanty and B Mohanty has passed this order after hearing a writ petition filed by Ojaswinee Bag, daughter of Ashok Bag. Ojaswinee, in her writ petition, had alleged that the arrest of her father by Komna PS IIC was illegal and arbitrary, because he had already been granted bail by the HC.
Bag is one of the 14 persons arrested so far in the multi-crore scam. When two cases have been registered by Komna police, another has been registered at Khariar PS against Bag.
“When the cause is same, the police should not register multiple cases. In this case, it is clear that the police are adopting wrong strategy to harass the accused,” said Chittaranjan Sing Deo, an advocate of Khariar.
“Instead of clubbing all the cases together, the police are registering separate cases in the scam to delay granting of bail,” he added. local lawyers have questioned the legality and genuineness of adopting such procedure by police.
On the contrary, the police have stated the HC that Bag could not produce the bail order when the arrest was made.
“If the bail order was not produced, why didn’t the police arrest on case no 164 and what was the need of framing another case,” asked Deo. The court has directed the SDJM, Nuapada and JMFC, Khariar to produce the records relating to the case through a special messenger on Friday.
The HC had earlier directed the SP and SDPO along with the two IICs to appear before it in this case. But as they failed to appear on the date, the court directed their personal appearance on November 8 to explain as to why contempt proceeding shall not be initiated against them for not performing according to the direction of the court.
Meanwhile, IICs of Komna and Khariar have filed petitions before the SDJM and JMFC respectively for remand of the accused.