Orissa High Court

Cuttack, Sept. 20: Orissa High Court has ordered a 19-year-old to clean shoes of devotees at Cuttack’s Chandi Temple two hours a week for 12 weeks. The teenager, accused of outraging the modesty of a woman, is out on bail.

The single-judge bench of Justice C.R. Dash included kar seva as one of the conditions, while granting bail to Suman Patra, alias Tiki, of Samanta Sahi in Cuttack.

The alleged incident occurred on June 29 at a wedding reception at Samanta Sahi. A case was registered at Purighat police station on a complaint filed by a family member of the 22-year-old victim.

Police had registered a case against Tiki, who was named the prime accused. He was arrested and had since been in police custody.

A bail petition was moved in the high court and it argued that “there is no criminal antecedent against (him) and in view of such fact there is possibility of reform in him”.

Taking note of the plea, Justice Dash said: “The petitioner shall be released on bail by executing a bond of Rs 20,000 with two sureties each solvent for the like amount to the satisfaction of sub-divisional judicial magistrate, Cuttack, subject to conditions.”

As part of the conditions, Justice Dash ordered the accused to appear before the investigating officer concerned twice a week on the day and time fixed by the cop till conclusion of the trial.

“Every Sunday at 4pm, the petitioner (Tiki) shall appear before the investigating officer, who shall make arrangements to take him to Cuttack Chandi Temple, where he shall do the kar seva by cleaning the shoes of the devotees for two hours. He shall continue to do the same for 12 weeks,” the order said.

“We are making arrangements to ensure the kar seva of cleaning shoes by the accused from Sunday. Though the high court had issued the order on September 9, implementation was not possible as the copy of the order was communicated to us only today,” Purighat police station inspector in-charge Harihar Dora told The Telegraph today.

“Tiki was released after the necessary orders were available on Tuesday last week,” his counsel Kali Mishra told The Telegraph.