Cuttack, April 21: The Justice A.S. Naidu Commission, which is probing into the alleged assault on a judicial magistrate by policemen last year, today issued notices to the president and another member of the Rourkela Bar Association to appear before it for cross-examination.

It has also expressed disinclination to pass any order on the association’s petition seeking permission to withdraw from the proceedings of inquiry.

The commission issued the notices after Odisha government counsel Bikram Kishore Nayak submitted a reply to the petition that was filed in protest against an alleged promotion given to the then Rourkela police superintendent when the inquiry was still on into the assault on a judicial magistrate by policemen in Rourkela.

The inquiry process had been disrupted following submission of the petition by the association on March 24 as the commission had not been able to consider the issue in the absence of a clarification by the Odisha government.

The Odisha government has clarified that Diptesh Pattanayak, the then police superintendent in Rourkela, has not been promoted till date. “The commission feels no order is needed to be passed granting liberty to withdraw from the proceedings before it,” Justice Naidu observed.

“The inquiry is almost at the fag end. Therefore, the witnesses — Ramesh Chandra Bal, Suresh Chandra Majhi and Akhaya Kumar Das — are directed to appear before the commission in Cuttack on May 5,” the order said.

Earlier, the bar association’s counsel Bibhu Tripathy had said: “The association felt compelled to withdraw from the proceedings as the Odisha government is pre-determined to completely give a go-by to the findings of the inquiry commission in contrast to normal practice.”