Bhubaneswar / Cuttack, April 4: With the legal fraternity up in arms against the alleged assault on a judicial magistrate in Rourkela, the state government ordered judicial probe into the incident.
“It’s an unfortunate incident. My government has decided to institute a judicial probe into the alleged incident involving a judicial magistrate and local police,” chief minister Naveen Patnaik told reporters here.
The commission of inquiry would be appointed in consultation with the chief justice of the high court, he said adding stringent action would be taken against those found guilty.
Udit Nagar police station inspector-in-charge Sadananda Pujari, who is the accused in this case, has been placed under suspension.
Lawyers in Rourkela, Cuttack and Bhubaneswar boycotted courts in protest against the incident. Members of the legal fraternity also organised a road blockade in the city.
According to the complaint lodged by Arun Patnaik, judicial magistrate first class stationed at Rourkela, he was misbehaved with and heckled by the police officer. Patnaik was lifted into a police jeep when he was standing in front of his official residence and talking on his mobile phone on Saturday night.
The magistrate alleged that he was slapped by the police officer and detained at Udit Nagar police station for hours that night even after he disclosed his identity. He called up police chief Diptesh Patnaik, who advised him to settle the matter amicably.
The police chief, however, declined to comment on the issue. “Since judicial inquiry has been ordered, I should not comment on the issue. Let’s wait for the probe report,” he told The Telegraph over phone. On the other hand, the complainant magistrate refused to speak to the media.
Members of Rourkela Bar Association today boycotted court proceedings and staged a road blockade by burning tyres. They also burnt an effigy of the local SP. They demanded immediate arrest of the accused police inspector and transfer of the SP.
Bar Association president Ramesh Bal said the magistrate had recently ordered an inquiry into alleged case of atrocity at the police station.
Bal said their agitation and road blockade would continue for a week. An all-party meeting had been called on April 6 to decide future course of action.
Court proceedings in Orissa High Court and all other lower courts in Cuttack remained paralysed today due to boycott by the lawyers.
Orissa High Court Bar Association observed the one-day token strike after passing a resolution condemning the “assault and misbehavior shown by a police officer to Arun Kumar Patnaik”
“The members abstained from court work for the day as a mark of protest against the police atrocity,” said Lalatendu Samantaray, secretary of the High Court Bar Association.
The high court today accepted a letter petition seeking “suo motu proceeding on public interest”. D.N.Lenka, a member of the High Court Bar Association, had filed the letter petition on alleged “physical and mental torture to a judicial magistrate by police personnel of Uditnagar police station in Rourkela”. He had sought suo motu proceeding in issuing notices to the state government as well as superintendent of police.
“Accepting the letter petition, the two-judge bench of Chief Justice V.Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N.Mohapatra directed the high court registry to treat it as a PIL and list it for hearing,” advocate D.N.Lenka said.
Several litigants who had turned to the High Court for judicial relief were affected due to today’s strike. S.Nageswar Prusty and 19 others of Kandhamal area had sought anticipatory bail. But it could not be taken up for hearing.
