The Justice A S Naidu Commission of Enquiry into the alleged police assault on a judicial magistrate in Rourkela in April last year concluded its proceedings on Saturday.
The commission is expected to submit its report to the Government soon. Having completed the proceedings within a year, the commission has become the first to have finished its enquiry within the time-frame.
The Justice A S Naidu Commission of Enquiry was announced by the Government on April 27 last year and it held its first sitting on August 20. Pursuant to its notices, as many as 46 affidavits had been filed. During the course of its proceedings, as many as 45 witnesses were examined. The commission held its sittings here.
Justice Naidu had been given the mandate to probe the circumstances that led to the alleged attack on the then Judicial Magistrate First Class, Rourkela, Arun Kumar Patnaik, by the police led by the then IIC of Uditnagar Sadanand Pujari inside the police station on the night of April 2 last year. The issue had raised a furore leading to lawyers’ strike across the State. The JMFC had alleged that he was picked up by the police while he was talking over phone in front of his house at Uditnagar on that day. He accused the police of forcibly taking him to the police station, where he was abused by IIC Pujari and physically assaulted. The police, on the other hand, alleged that the judicial officer was in an inebriated state and had abused them inside the police station. A case was also registered against Patnaik.
With the situation turning serious, the Government had then suspended the IIC and had also directed the then SP Diptesh Patnaik to go on leave. Diptesh was charged by the lawyers’ bodies with trying to shield the IIC in the case.