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Bhubaneswar: Gopalpur MLA Pradeep Panigrahi, who was arrested by the Odisha Crime Branch on charges of forgery, fraud and criminal conspiracy on December 3, will have to stay in jail for some more time after a local court rejected his bail plea on Monday evening.
The Additional District and Sessions Court (III), Bhubaneswar heard his bail application before turning it down.
The Court had reserved its order following hearing in the afternoon. The final order came later in the evening.
Earlier on December 3, the Crime Branch produced him before the court of Sub-divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM), who had sent him to 14-day judicial custody by rejecting his bail application. He has been lodged in Jharpada jail here.
Panigrahi is under Crime Branch scanner for his alleged links with the disproportionate assets case of IFS officer Abhay Kant Pathak and his son Akash.
The legislator, who had also been expelled from BJD for ‘anti-people’ activities, has been charged with facilitating duping of youths in Ganjam district by his would-be- son-in-law Akash Pathak who allegedly collected huge money from youths on false promise of giving them job. Akash and his father Abhaykant Pathak, a senior IFS officer were arrested by vigilance earlier for amassing properties worth crores disproportionate to their known sources of income. Akash was arrested ahead of his marriage with Panigrahi’s daughter that was scheduled for December 11.
Panigrahi, once considered as the blue-eyed boy of Chief Minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik, drew party wrath by questioning government's Covid-19 mismanagement in Ganjam district.
