Social activist and ex-Serviceman Jayanta Kumar Das of Puri has filed a PIl in the Odisha High Court alleging that a Government plot in the Ghatikia residential area of Bhubaneswar has been leased out in favour of former State Information Commissioner (SIC) Jagadananda’s wife Manjushree Patnaik illegally and under the influence of the former.
Seeking the HC’s intervention to cancel the lease in the name of Patnaik, the petitioner has sought legal action against Jagadananda for exerting pressure on the Government to allot the land in his wife’s favour although by that time he himself was owner of two plots in Bhubaneswar. Stating that the General Administration Department by way of lottery had chosen the plot in the name of applicant Patnaik in February 1989, the petition said a lease agreement was made on it in July 1992. “But the plot could not be handed over to Ms Patnaik as she failed to pay the subsequent instalments inviting a notice to clear the dues along with penalty,” the petition said.
However, in March 2010, when Jagadananda was Information Commissioner, his wife wrote a letter to the GA Department requesting the authorities to clarify about the penalties levied on her over the allotted plot. “The authorities after receiving the letter, illegally delivered the possession of the land in her favour at the instance of her husband, who was then functioning as the State Information Commissioner,” the petition said, alleging that Jagadananda at that point of time (June 2010) had owned two residential plots in the Bhubaneswar Municipality