Cuttack, Feb. 19: The president and another member of the Rourkela Bar Association have expressed unwillingness to visit Cuttack to face cross-examination before the Justice A. S. Naidu Commission probing into the alleged assault of a judicial magistrate in Rourkela by policemen.

The commission had summoned the association president Ramesh Chandra Bal and member Suresh Chandra Majhi to appear before it in Cuttack on Saturday.

“After hearing the counsel for the parties, it has been decided to defer the cross-examination of the two witnesses for the time being. The date for holding the sitting in Rourkela shall be decided later,” Justice A. S. Naidu Commission said in its order.

In its order today, the commission issued notices to Arun Kumar Pattnaik, the judicial magistrate (first class) who was allegedly assaulted by the police in Rourkela on April 2, 2011, to “examine and cross-examine” him on March 11. His wife Subhasmita Satpathy and father Bijay Patnaik were also issued notices to appear before the commission on March 10. “Both the sittings shall be held in Cuttack,” the order said.

The commission issued the order after recording statements of Sidhartha Sahoo (the then junior division civil judge, Rourkela) and Nilasis Sengupta (junior steno of judicial magistrate first class, Rourkela).

In an affidavit, Bal had stated: “My strong perception is that the Rourkela police in general and superintendent of police in particular had lost their sense of proportion. The superintendent of police and many of his subordinates became corrupt and repressive. That led to the assault to a magistrate.”

The Odisha government had appointed the one-man commission headed by the retired judge of the high court to conduct an inquiry and submit a report with “an analysis of the sequence of events and circumstances leading to the incident along with the role, conduct and responsibility of the persons involved in it”.

The Bar Association had boycotted court work and spearheaded a Rourkela bandh on April 8, 2011. “When the bandh was successful without any violence, police registered false cases against some lawyers in Uditnagar police station and Sector-7 police station,” the association president had alleged in his affidavit.

Earlier, general secretary of All-Odisha Judicial Officers Association Mohammed Ajmal had, in his affidavit, accused the police of using “third degree method” against judicial magistrate (first class) Arun Pattnaik and “curtailing his liberty” on the night of April 2, 2011, in Rourkela.

During cross-examination by the commission on January 28, Ajmal, however, said the association came to the conclusion “from the contents of the complaint petition of Arun Kumar Patnaik”.

“No fact finding team of the association was constituted for inquiring into the matter,” Ajmal said during cross-examination by Amaresh Mishra, counsel of Sadananda Pujahari (inspector-in-charge Uditnagar police station), the prime accused in the alleged assault of the judicial magistrate.