Cuttack, Sept. 14: Orissa High Court today revoked its order for imprisonment of a councillor and three other officials of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation following conviction in a contempt case on August 2.

While Nrupesh Kumar Nayak (councillor) was sentenced to one-month imprisonment, Tarakanta Mohapatra (executive engineer), Sheikh Nasrul (assistant engineer) and Satyasai Subudhi (junior engineer) were ordered 15-day imprisonment.

The court had awarded the sentence after finding them guilty of committing “wilful non-compliance” of an order of status quo order on construction of a road at ward No. 52. The court had issued the status quo on October 6, 2010.

But, when petitions were filed by them to grant time to file the Special Leave Petition (SLP) against the order in the Supreme Court the high court had, on the same day, allowed the appeal petitions and kept the order under suspension for 60 days and released them on PR bond of Rs 50,000 each.

According to case records, the high court had issued the status quo order on a petition alleging forcible construction of a road by corporation on a disputed land at Nageswar Tangi. One Dipti Mishra had sought intervention on the plea that she would suffer irreparably if road construction was allowed to continue.

Subsequently, the high court had initiated contempt proceedings after allegation that the councillor, in connivance with the corporation engineers, had gone ahead with the construction despite the status quo order. Showcause notices and orders for personal appearance had followed.

The three engineers had tendered unconditional apology and sought dropping of the contempt case against them. The councillor, on the other hand, had argued in his affidavit that the contempt case against him should be dropped as no contempt proceeding was made out against him.

The high court dubbed the councillor’s affidavit as “misleading” and issued the order for imprisonment, while observing that “if elected representatives act in this manner, it gives a bad message to the society”.

Nayak, however, had filed an application today for remitting or discharging him from the punishment.

“Keeping in view the unqualified and unconditional apology tendered by him with repentance in the application, the two-judge bench of Justice B.P. Das and Justice S.K. Mishra remitted the sentence awarded to him and the three other officials as well as discharged them of punishment,” Nayak’s counsel Bibhu Prasad Tripathy told The Telegraph.

“The bench, however, directed them for maintaining of status quo by restoring the wall which was pulled down for road construction,” Tripathy said.