Cuttack, May 18: Orissa High Court today directed the state government to immediately provide the Justice A.S. Naidu Commission necessary infrastructure and staff to start its probe into the alleged assault of the judicial magistrate in Rourkela by policemen last month.

The division bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra issued the direction after expressing dissatisfaction that though the Orissa government issued a notification on April 16 appointing Naidu, the retired high court judge, as head of a one-man commission, the necessary infrastructure and appointment of staff had not followed.

The bench was hearing a PIL on alleged “assault and misbehaviour shown by a police officer to Arun Kumar Patnaik, judicial magistrate (first class), Rourkela”.

The court registered the PIL on April 4 by accepting 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 the alleged “physical and mental torture to a judicial magistrate by police personnel of Uditnagar police station in Rourkela”.

On May 5, the court fixed May 18 for next hearing on the PIL while directing the Orissa government to apprise it by then the terms of reference of the commission.

“However, the court had not received any communication on it till date,” advocate D.N. Lenka told The Telegraph today.

On May 5, the court allowed the intervention petition filed by the Rourkela Bar Association in connection with the PIL. Earlier, the court had included, as parties in the PIL, the Orissa High Court Bar Association, the All Orissa Judicial Officers Association, the Orissa Police Association and the Orissa Havildar, Constable and Sepoy Mahasangh. It had directed the associations to file their respective affidavits to “assist the court in arriving at just conclusion”.