CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has rejected the interim bail plea of Subash Chandra Sahoo, an accounts section staffer of the district education office (DEO), Cuttack, after a forged letter on a medical requirement was presented by him.
Sahoo had filed the bail petition while his wife was deponent of the interlocutory application (IA) seeking interim bail on basis of the letter reportedly from Dr Satyajit Padhiary which indicated necessity of Sahoo undergoing angiogram test.
Sahoo is accused of siphoning off over `51.53 lakh from government funds through fraudulent generation of salaries in the names of fake employees by manipulating official financial portals. He was arrested by the state Vigilance on May 14 this year.
When the bench of Justice Gourishankar Satapathy was hearing the interim bail plea of Sahoo, additional public prosecutor Sanjay Kumar Das produced documents, including a letter issued by Dr Satyajit Padhiary. The letter stated that it had not been issued by him.
The court found that the petitioner had, however, annexed to his interlocutory application a letter titled “to whom may it consider”, claiming it had been issued by the same doctor.
Dr Padhiary appeared before the court through video-conferencing and, in the presence of counsel for both parties, confirmed that he had not issued the letter. Recording the development, Justice Satapathy observed that the document appeared to be fake.
The development also led Sahoo’s counsel, Abhas Mohanty, to express remorse for having accepted the brief. He requested the court to pass an appropriate order, including imposition of heavy costs on the petitioner.
The court subsequently held that, in view of the documents produced before it, there was no merit in the interim bail application and rejected the plea. It also directed Sahoo and his wife to explain how the fraudulent document came to be filed before the court. The case has been posted for August 24.