CUTTACK: The issue of alleged theft of a judicial commission report on the 2008 assassination of VHP leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati from the chief minister’s office (CMO) reached the Orissa High Court on Tuesday with the filing of a petition seeking direction for a CBI probe into it.
Dhenkanal-based social activist and advocate Debashisha Hota filed a fresh plea by way of an interlocutory application (IA) to the petition he had filed earlier for a CBI probe into the ‘unsolved’ Laxmanananda Saraswati murder case to find out the real culprit in the interest of justice, equity and fair play.
Hota filed the IA while the Crime Branch formally took over from the Bhubaneswar police the probe into the theft of the Justice A S Naidu Commission report from the CMO in June 2024.
Officials recently discovered that the report by retired Justice A S Naidu had not been returned from the CMO to the Home department on June 4, 2024, the day Assembly election results signalled the fall of the BJD government. Commissionerate police launched an investigation by registering an FIR at Capital police station on June 10 against ‘unknown suspects’.
On July 27, Chief Minister Mohan Majhi referred the missing file case of the Naidu Commission report to the Crime Branch.
Tracing the Naidu commission report assumes significance as making its findings public was BJP’s 2024 election promise.
In his IA, Hota described the disappearance of critical judicial inquiry records, specifically the Justice AS Naidu Commission report from the CMO as ‘an alarming systematic breakdown.’ He contends that a CBI inquiry is imperative ‘for a comprehensive and independent probe.’
Earlier, acting on Hota’s petition, the high court had on January 2, 2024, issued notice to the state government to show-cause why a CBI probe should not be ordered into the murder of Swami Laxmanananda. The petition has since been pending before the high court.
Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati was killed by unidentified gunmen on August 23, 2008, at his Jalespata Ashram in Kandhamal. A widespread violence in Kandhamal followed his murder. The subsequent riots claimed 38 lives, left hundreds injured and over 25,000 homeless.
The state government had appointed a Judicial Commission of Enquiry on September 8, 2008 to look into events and circumstances leading to the killing of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati along with his four associates and the subsequent violence. The single-member judicial commission headed by Justice AS Naidu submitted its report in December 22, 2015.