BHUBANESWAR: The Crime Branch (CB) and Commissionerate Police, two major wings of the Odisha Police, have come under scrutiny over their handling of two high-profile investigation.
A court’s observations in the textbook errors case and the chargesheet of the GRP constable murder case have raised serious questions over the quality of the probe.
In the textbook errors case, a special court in Cuttack granted bail to former Directorate of Teacher Education and SCERT director Manoj Kumar Padhy, the prime accused.
The court observed that the investigating agency had failed to place any material linking Padhy to any personal gain from the alleged irregularities. “Till date, not a single scrap of paper has been submitted by the prosecution to prove what benefit or pleasure the accused has derived,” the court said in its order.
It further noted that investigators had not even attempted to verify any suspicious financial transactions involving Padhy or his family members.
Padhy has been booked on charges of criminal negligence, conspiracy and criminal breach of trust for allegedly approving print-ready school textbook manuscripts without ensuring factual verification. Although some of the invoked provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) carry a punishment of up to 10 years imprisonment, the prosecution failed to convince the court to deny him bail.
“We will examine the court’s order to understand why bail was granted to Padhy,” a CB officer said. The textbook errors case had snowballed into a major embarrassment for the state government after hundreds of factual and typographical mistakes were found in school textbooks, prompting the government to entrust the probe to the Crime Branch.
“Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi had adopted a strong stand and assured stringent action in the case, but the CB failed to produce even basic evidence to prevent Padhy from securing bail. It is highly embarrassing,” an officer said.
Meanwhile, the Bhubaneswar police has also come under criticism in the sensational murder of government railway police (GRP) constable Soumya Ranjan Swain. The CB chargesheet named only 11 accused while dropping nine of the 20 people arrested earlier by Balianta police, citing lack of evidence.
A CB officer said the agency found sufficient evidence against only 11 accused, including seven arrested by the Crime Branch and four apprehended earlier by Balianta police.
“The remaining nine, who had been arrested by the local police, claimed before CB officers that they were not present at the spot during the incident. We examined the video footage and did not find their presence,” the officer said.
Sources said the Crime Branch also carried out technical analysis, including verification of mobile phone locations, and gathered human intelligence to cross-check their claims. The findings have put the Commissionerate Police in an uncomfortable position, raising questions over the basis of the arrests made immediately after the May 7 lynching, which had sparked nationwide outrage and prompted CM Majhi to hand over probe to Crime Branch.