Cuttack, July 10: Orissa High Court rejected the petition of three doctors, who had allegedly chopped off the palms while conducting post-mortem of five tribal persons killed in the Kalinga Nagar police firing over seven years ago.

The court order clears the decks for the Justice P.K. Mohanty Commission to proceed with recording of evidences in the Kalinga Nagar firing incident that killed 13 tribal persons on January 2, 2006.

The police had opened fire on a large gathering protesting against land acquisition for a Tata Steel plant at Kalinga Nagar.

The commission had received affidavits from over 100 persons and 96 of them had been examined so far. But the commission was unable to wind up the process of recording evidence because the doctors had delayed filing their responses.

The commission had issued notices to the three doctors — Bibekananda Swain, Shantanu Kumar Sahu and Anup Kumar Nathsharma — to clarify their stand as allegations were received in connection with the controversial chopping off palms by them during post-mortem of five bodies.

“The commission had sought replies from them to give them reasonable opportunity of being heard in the inquiry. But they had pressed for being allowed to file their replies after cross-examination of the witnesses related to allegations against them. While the commission rejected their plea they had challenged it in the high court,” commission’s secretary Niranjan Nayak said.

Official sources said the high court division bench of Chief Justice C. Nagappan and Justice Indrajit Mahanty rejected the petitions of the three doctors yesterday, on grounds of merit.

On July 6, the commission had granted the medics two weeks time to file replies to the notices after their counsel had sought more time on the plea that the court had fixed July 9 for order on their petitions challenging the notices.

The commission has fixed July 20 for the next sitting. The three doctors are expected to submit their replies on that day.