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Case against Minister dropped

Correspondent

The court dropped the case against the Minister giving him protection under criminal procedure code

CUTTACK: The Cuttack Sadar SDJM on Monday refused to take cognisance of a `complain' case filed against State Higher Education Minister Samir Dey on the ground that the complaint was made against the political leader after the expiry of the deadline and with a "malafide and motivated interest."

Although the court found that the BJP MLA of Cuttack city had prima facie committed offence under section 177 of IPC (furnishing false information by way of affidavit to public servant), the Cuttack Sadar SDJM court dropped the case against the Minister giving him protection under criminal procedure code.

"Section 468 of CrPC states that no court shall take cognisance of an offence punishable with imprisonment for a term not extending one year after expiry of a period of one year from the date of commission of offence. Since Dey had committed the offence on April 4, 2004 and the punishment for offence under section 177 is imprisonment for six months and a fine of Rs 1000 or both, he is therefore entitled to be protected under CrPC as the complaint against him was filed on March 9, 2007", said Dey's counsel Souri Mohapatra.

Sub-Collector files case

Cuttack Sadar Sub-Collector M K Rath who is also the returning officer of Cuttack city Assembly constituency had filed the case against the Minister alleging that he had submitted false affidavits at the time of filing his nomination paper for the April 2004 Assembly elections.

"While at least four criminal cases were pending against the BJP leader at the time of filing his nomination paper on April 4, 2004, he had suppressed these information in the two affidavits submitted along with his nomination papers," Mr Rath had alleged in his petition.

Mr Rath had urged the SDJM court last Friday to take cognisance of the petition and issue summons to the accused political leader to face trial.

The move against the Minister came following a series of directions from the Election Commission (EC) and the State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) to the district administration.

The SDJM court came down heavily on the complainant Rath raising question mark on his conduct. "There was deliberate latches on the part of the complainant (Rath) to file the complaint in time," the court said.

The court further said the delay in filing the complaint could have been condoned but the complainant has not given any satisfactory reason explaining the delay.

"There has been inordinate delay in filing of the complaint and no satisfactory reason has been shown explaining the delay," the court observed in its eight-page judgment dropping the complaint case against the Minister.

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