Cuttack, Aug. 2: Orissa High Court today ordered the imprisonment of a councillor and three other officials of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) following their conviction in a contempt case.

While Nrupesh Kumar Nayak, the councillor, was sentenced to jail for one month, Tarakanta Mohapatra (executive engineer), Sheikh Nasrul (assistant engineer) and Satyasai Subudhi (junior engineer) were sentenced to 15 days of imprisonment.

The two-judge bench of Justice B.P. Das and Justice S.K. Mishra awarded the sentence after finding them guilty of committing “willful non-compliance” of an order of status quo on the construction of a road in Nageswar Tangi area, which the court had issued on October 6, 2010.

However, the bench later kept the sentence under suspension and allowed their release on PR bonds after petitions were filed by them to grant them time to file special leave petition (SLP) against it in the Supreme Court.

“Allowing the appeal petitions, the court kept the order under suspension for 60 days and allowed their release on PR bonds of Rs 50,000 each. In the process, they were detained in the custody of the registrar (judiciary) of the high court for two hours,” Nayak’s counsel Iswar Chandra Das told The Telegraph.

According to case records, the high court had issued the status quo order on a petition alleging forcible construction of a road by BMC on a disputed land in Nageswar Tangi area.

One Dipti Mishra had sought intervention on the plea that she would suffer irreparably if construction of the road was allowed to continue. Subsequently, the high court had initiated contempt proceedings after it was alleged that that the councillor, in connivance with the BMC engineers, had gone ahead with the road 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 is made out against him. The high court, however, dubbed the councillor’s affidavit as “misleading” and observed “if elected representatives act in this manner, it gives a bad message to the society”.

Councillor Nrupesh Kumar Nayak had, in his affidavit, argued that the BMC had decided to take out the road on plot No. 506 and after measurement, it came to notice that the petitioner had encroached upon a portion of the road. The encroached portion was removed with due notice to the petitioner by the BMC.