STATE OF ORISSA Vs. BIJAYA MOHANTY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The opposite party, a police officer, has faced this contempt proceeding. At the relevant time, he was the Officer-in-charge of Pattamundai Police Station. The proceeding has been initiated on a reference from the Sessions, Judge, Cuttack. The allegation is that the opposite party arrested one Jadu alias Ramachandra Sahoo, who has intervened in this case and would be described hereinafter as 'the intervenor', in C.R. Case No. 855 of 1990 on 13-11-1990, despite a certified copy of the order dated 6-11-1990 of the Sessions Judge, Cuttack, releasing the intervenor in the said case on bail having been produced before the former, which was not honoured. The defence of the contemner-opposite party is that the copy of the order in question had not been produced, and it is only in the police station, where the intervenor had been taken afterwards, that mention was made by him about his having been released on bail. He was thereafter forwarded to the court of the S.D.J.M. Kendrapara and was produced on 14-11-1990 before the said court, when his advocate had produced for the first time a certified copy of the order of the Sessions Judge, when he was released on bail by the S.D.J.M.

(2.) The only point for decision, therefore, is whether from the materials on record it can be held that the certified copy of the order of release passed by the learned Sessions Judge had been produced before the opposite party when he arrested the intervenor (Jadu) on 13-11-1990.

(3.) Shri Rath appearing for the opposite party submits that three circumstances would belie the allegation. These are : (i) a look at the certified copy of the order, which is in the file of I.C.C. Case No. 301 of 1990 instituted by the intervenor himself against the opposite party on the allegation of wrongful confinement etc., would show that this order does not bear any mark of tearing, which would belie the case of the intervenor that when the certified copy of the order was shown to the opposite party, it was torn by him; (ii) the S. D.O. and the S.D.P.O., who had come to Pattamundai police station on a tense situation having been created after the intervenor had been kept confined in the police station, were not reported by him that the opposite party had arrested him despite a certified copy of the bail order having been shown to him; and (iii) the order of the S.D.J.M., Kendrapara passed on 14-11-1990 itself would show that when the intervener was produced before him, the certified copy of the order of bail was produced by his advocate, before which nothing had been stated by him even about his release on bail by the Sessions Judge.