New Delhi, April 19: The Supreme Court today issued notices to the Odisha government on a petition seeking to restrain the state government from releasing Maoists in return for BJD MLA Jhina Hikaka, who has been taken hostage by the rebels in the tribal district of Koraput. The notices are returnable in two weeks.

A two-judge bench, consisting of Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice Gyan Sudha Misra, today issued the notices after hearing short arguments from counsel Brijesh Kalappa.

Kalappa was arguing for major general (retired) Gagandeep Bakshi, who has challenged the Odisha move to release over 27 Maoists in jails across the state to secure the release of Hikaka, and two other Italian tourists, who, however, had been freed earlier.

Maoist leader Sabyasachi Panda and others conveyed the demand for release of the jailed rebels through mediators B.D. Sharma and Dandapani Mohanty.

Kalappa argued that there was no “cogent reason” why the state should concede to the Maoists’ demands. He said the state had evolved a novel method of releasing Maoists by not opposing their bail pleas. “The bail applications filed on behalf of the Maoists or accused are not being opposed by the public prosecutor or the state. This is how the state government is carrying out the Maoists’ dictate, forgetting the law and rule of law. This is an issue that begs for the court’s attention since the Odisha government’s decision subverts the rule of law, which is a basic structure of our Constitution.”

In Bhubaneswar, chief minister Naveen Patnaik said: “The court has not issued any stay on the matter of bail related to Left-wing extremism.” Official sources, however, said the government was yet to receive any notice from the court.

The petition, filed yesterday, by counsel Ankolekar Charudatta, sought a court direction to restrain the Odisha government from agreeing to the “blackmail” by the Maoists to release their cadres. It also sought a direction to the central government to frame a law and guidelines to tackle the problem of Maoist insurgency, a demand that solicitor general Rohinton Nariman objected to.

Bakshi, who retired in 2008, said in his petition that he had undertaken several counter-terror operations on the Line of Control and in J-K and Punjab. He has been awarded the Vishist Sena medal for commanding his battalion in active operations in Kargil and the Sena medal for his distinguished services.

His petition said citing information from the home ministry website that the Maoists had emerged as the biggest Left-wing extremist outfit in the country.

Media reports, the petition said, indicated that the rebels were growing in strength in many parts of the country and seeking to overwhelm and overthrow the Indian democracy. The Maoists had kidnapped the Italian duo, Claudio Colangelo and Paolo Bosusco, on March 14. On March 24, they kidnapped Hikaka.

Bakshi’s petition said the Maoists had been targeting civilian non-combatants to fulfil their demands. If they were released, the petition said, it would “create insecurity in the minds of the people and scores of officers of law enforcement agencies, who lose their lives to apprehend these criminals in the line of their duty to maintain public safety and security”.

The petition pointed out that the Maoists had killed as many as 5,467 civilians between 2001 and 2011. It has also claimed that the Maoists had taken to planting IEDs in jungles to create maximum damage to security personnel and that the Maoism had turned into an extortion racket in the seven states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Bengal and Maharashtra.

Bakshi’s petition stated that Odisha police were unhappy with the decision to release the Maoists cadres. The state had allegedly stopped all police operations and closed down BSF camps, bowing to the rebels’ demands, the petition stated. It stated that Odisha’s record in tackling the Maoists was worse than Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bengal.

“This is not the first time the state government is being seen to be capitulating to the Maoists. This, when there is enough evidence of confusion and infighting in the Maoist ranks,” it said.