Odisha High Court upholds conviction of Congress MLA in corruption case
It’s pertinent to note here that a special vigilance court had sentenced the lawmaker a three-year rigorous imprisonment term.
A petition moved with the Orissa High court on illegal confinement of a woman lawyer for alleged Naxal link was ironically listed twice for hearing in the past decade with the court issuing fresh notices on the plea that sought for Rs 20 lakh compensation for the arbitrary arrest and languishing in jail.
“Although this petition was filed in 2011, in the last ten years it was listed only twice i.e. on 23rd February, 2012 and 6th September, 2012 for hearing. Since they were police officers, we direct the Home department to provide their correct present addresses to the counsel for the petitioner and to the Registry within four weeks”, a division bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice BP Routray ordered while listing the matter for further hearing on 16 November.
A woman lawyer Pratima Das was arrested in 2008 for alleged Naxal link and had to languish in jail for a period of two years three months and four days till the court had acquitted and dropped two cases registered against her. The cops had arrested the lawyer in 2008 and implicated her in two criminal cases registered at the Raghunathpur police station in Jagatsinghpur and Jamankira police station in Sambalpur. As the prosecution failed to corroborate her Naxal involvement in both the cases, Das was acquitted on 17 November, 2010, not before the suspected accused spent over 27 months in jail.
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The petitioner Das stated that she was falsely implicated in the cases and moved the Orissa High Court seeking Rs 20 lakh compensation. It was ‘false imprisonment’ and ‘failure of the State to protect her life, liberty and livelihood’; the petition had maintained and had prayed the court to initiate legal action against the police officials responsible for the commission of creating false evidence to implicate in two cases.
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