CUTTACK: The court of Judicial Magistrate, First Class, (JMFC) has directed IIC of Mahanga police station complete investigation of the Mahanga double murder case and submit probe report as per Section 173(8) of CrPC at the earliest.
The direction came on Saturday in response to a petition filed by the informant Ramakant Baral who prayed the court to direct the investigating officer (IO) to submit electronics evidence - call detail records (CDRs) - of the accused and material persons already collected by him till December 10,2021.
The informant had submitted that the State is not supporting his case. Since Baral is apprehensive of an unwarranted situation, he urged the court to submit all the CDRs collected by the IO during the investigation. Baral had also alleged that the IO was directed to submit an up to date case diary as per the order passed by the court on November 18, 2021, but did not submit the CDRs which are part of the case diary regarding the investigation conducted by him so far.
Earlier, the court had observed that there is no justification or urgency made out to recall the previous order and direct the IO to submit the CDRs at this stage as it had already directed him to preserve the CDRs and connected documents and submit the same along with the further investigation report. However, the court stated in its Saturday order that it is impressed upon the IO to preserve the CDRs and ensure that they are also preserved by the service providers and are made available before the court at the time of submission of further investigation report for fair trial.
The court has also rejected a petition of Mahanga IIC who had prayed for permission to examine accused Bhikari Swain and Khitish Kumar Acharya who are in jail custody in connection with the case in relation with the facts that came to the light during the analysis of CDRs. “The two chargesheeted persons have been committed for trial before Additional District and Session Judge, Salepur and presently not in the judicial custody of this court,” stated the JMFC court while rejecting the police petition.
In the petition on January 11, the IO had submitted that from the CDRs, it came to fore that there was one call between the material person Sarat Nayak who is the sitting Chairman of Mahanga block and an accused Bhikari Swain besides, two calls between Nayak and another accused late Prafulla Biswal. Calls were also made between Law Minister Pratap Jena’s personal assistant Bapi Biswal and accused persons Bhikari Swain, Khitish Acharya and late Biswal.
“Since conversations as mentioned above are not available in the CDRs, the accused Bhikari Swain and Khitish Acharya need to be examined,” pleaded the IO.
Opposing the police plea, counsel for the informant, advocate Prabin Kanungo however raised a question as to why the IO was interested in examining the accused persons who are behind the bar instead of examining the person who are currently available.