While fixing July 30 as the date for producing top Maoist leader Sabyasachi Panda before it, the SDJM Court of Nayagarh on Monday rejected the State Crime Branch’s appeal to handcuff him while bringing him from the Brahmapur jail to Nayagarh and taking him back.
Sources said the court refused to accept the Crime Branch’s argument that Panda’s case is a rarest of the rare kind. The court observed that since trained armed guards would be accompanying a disarmed accused, there is no need to handcuff him during his to and fro journey between Brahmapur and Nayagarh. The Nayagarh SP and other senior police officers reviewed the security situation within the SDJM Court premises on Monday.