Cuttack, Jan. 8: The Odisha government’s ban on gutka and pan masala containing tobacco or nicotine as ingredients have come under judicial scrutiny with Orissa High Court seeking details on the prohibition.

The division bench of acting Chief Justice Pradip Mohanty and Justice S.K. Mishra issued the direction yesterday, on a PIL seeking intervention to prohibit illegal production, distribution, supply and marketing of smokeless products such as gutka, khaini, pan masala, gudakhu, zarda or any other products containing tobacco or nicotine like substances in Odisha.

Bikash Das, president of the Committee for Legal Aid to Poor along with M.D. Imran Ali of Bhadrak and Jitendra Kumar Sahoo of Kandhamal filed the PIL.

The Odisha government had issued a notification enforcing the ban on January 4. The court directed the commissioner-cum-secretary of both the departments of health and food supplies as well as consumer welfare to file affidavits within seven days giving a report on the ban.

Tobacco use in Odisha is more than the national average in India. The current smokeless tobacco users here, according to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, 2010, are 43.1 per cent, of which 53 per cent are men and 35.5 per cent women. More than 90 per cent of such women consume smokeless tobacco products and a large number of these users are in reproductive age group, thus exposing the newborns to risk, the petition pointed out such risks.

Suicide case

Orissa High Court today directed the state government to submit all records related to the alleged Madhabilata Pradhan suicide case, which the Odisha crime branch has been investigating without any apparent progress for the past two months.

The court called for the records after the state counsel failed to submit a status report on the ongoing probe.

The body of Madhabilata, an Ayush doctor, was found on railway tracks on the outskirts of Puri on October 12 last year. She was under transfer allegedly at the behest of a BJD MLA.

The incident triggerred controversy after the Mahila Congress alleged that Brahmagiri BJD MLA Sanjay Dasburma had pressurised her to take a transfer.

The Odisha government had ordered a crime branch probe on November 5.

The court was hearing a petition seeking CBI probe into the death. Madhabilata’s brother, Nilakantha Pradhan, who filed the petition, also sought direction for recovery of the body and handing it over to the members of her family.

In its November 7 order, the high court directed the Odisha government to submit before it a status report within two weeks. But when the case came up for hearing the order had not been complied.

“Taking note of it, the division bench of Justice M.M. Das and Justice B.K. Mishra called for all case records related to the death and set January 28 as deadline for compliance of the order by the Odisha government,” petitioner counsel Nishikanta Mishra told The Telegraph.

“The court further directed the government to file a counter-affidavit to the petition along with a status report on the CID / crime branch investigation,” Mishra said.

According to Railway police, Madhabilata, 34, posted at a community health centre at Kanas in Puri district, was found dead on a railway track at Malatipur on October 12. She had committed suicide.

Nilakantha, however, in his petition before the high court alleged that her sister had not committed suicide, but was kidnapped and later murdered. While seeking direction for a CBI probe, he further alleged that some government officials and politicians were involved in it.

Nilakantha said her sister had gone missing after her visit to the office of the chief district medical officer (Puri) on October 12. Though the matter was reported at Kumbharpada police station in Puri on the same day, the police officials sat over it after registering it as a missing person case, he alleged in his petition.

The petition for CBI was filed at a time when there was widespread protests in Bhubaneswar, Puri and Rourkela where Students’ Congress, civil society organisations, ayurvedic medicos’ association took out rallies demanding CBI probe into the doctor’s death.