Cuttack, Oct. 17: The alleged victim of a 1999 Balasore sex scandal has accused three IAS officers from the state of forcing her into implicating their colleague and three others in the case.

In a petition filed in the Orissa High Court, the victim also named a senior Congress leader for his reported role in giving protection to the alleged linchpin of the sex scandal — Pravasini Kar, who was a physical training instructor at KKS Women’s College in Balasore at that time.

The scandal involved luring of girl students by Pravasini from Balasore to Bhubaneswar for sexual exploitation.

The scandal apparently centred on the alleged incident involving the victim at Krishna Apartments in Bhubaneswar on July 9, 1999.

In her petition, she said the three IAS officers had “pressurised and threatened” her to take the names of their colleague Prashant Nayak (IAS), the then special secretary to the chief minister, two advocates and a senior member of the judiciary during recording of statements by the CBI and before the metropolitan magistrate.

She alleged that they also forced her to implicate the four of them while giving her statement before the chief judicial magistrate (Balasore) though they “were in no way connected with the incident”, the petition stated, while seeking further inquiry by the CBI into the scandal.

In her petition, she alleged: “Investigations having been carried in most shoddy and perfunctory manner, the real culprits have not been brought to the limelight, as a result of which, many innocent girls are falling into the trap of exploitation.”

The high court has agreed to consider whether further inquiry by the CBI into the alleged Balasore sex scandal is necessary.

The division bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.K. Mishra has fixed November 12 to hear the case after accepting and taking on record an affidavit filed before it by the victim in person reiterating her plea for further probe.

Going back to her college days, the 33-year-old woman said in her affidavit: “Our physical training instructor, Pravasini Kar, used to supply girls from different areas to various VIPs and political leaders. During the course of such a nefarious deal, Pravasini came in contact with the three IAS officers to whom she supplied the girls. Pravasini’s active aid was an officer of the allied services. They used to supply girls to various high-profile persons. For that purpose, Pravasini kept the flat at Krishna Apartments (in Bhubaneswar).”

One of the three IAS named by her has died.

She has sought further CBI inquiry by an officer of the rank of deputy inspector-general as directed by Orissa High Court earlier.

Acting on a PIL, the high court had ordered a CBI probe into the alleged sex scandal in May 2000. The CBI had subsequently completed its probe and filed chargesheets against Pravasini and the allied officer while giving Nayak a clean chit.

But, Nayak was implicated in the case when the chief judicial magistrate, Bhubaneswar (designated CBI court), took cognisance of offences under Sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code against him on July 3, 2006, on the basis of a complaint petition filed by the PIL petitioner Prasanta Kumar Das. Nayak had challenged it in the high court. The high court imposed restrictions on proceedings arising out of it, but his petition is still pending before it.

On July 27, 2006, the state government suspended Nayak after the court took cognisance of the offences against him.

In another development, the Central Administrative Tribunal had refused to interfere as the case is pending before the high court.

“We are hamstrung in taking any conclusive view on this matter due to the nexus shown by the respondent (state government) between the criminal case and the order of suspension,” the tribunal stated in February 2011.

“Unless a clear picture emerges and the high court takes the decision on the matter, we cannot reach any conclusion at this stage on the issue of revocation of the order of suspension,” the tribunal bench consisting of C.R. Mohapatra (administrative member) and A.K. Patnaik (judicial member) said.