LIVE TV
Odisha
Recommended Stories
A single-judge bench comprising Justice M M Das asked the prosecution to file the charge sheet after conducting further investigations into the murder case, acting on two writ petitions.
The lower court was also restrained from passing any judgement in the case without the leave of the high court.
Saraswati`s disciple Brahmachari Madhav Chaitanya, the informant and key eye-witness in the case and VHP leader Durga Prasanna Kar filed two separate petitions seeking an impartial enquiry by an independent agency, preferably the CBI, into the murder during the Janmashtami celebrations at the Jaleshpeta Ashram on August 23, 2008.
The petitioners alleged that the crime branch police although, submitting two charge sheets in the case naming 14 accused, had not investigated the role of a local church which had reportedly passed a resolution in presence of a senior state government officer just prior to the incident that Saraswati would be eliminated in order to restore peace in Kandhamal.
Pointing out alleged discrepancies in the investigations, the petitioners claimed that just two days after Saraswati was killed two persons were apprehended by locals while washing blood-stained clothes in a pond in Nuagaon area of Kandhamal district.
The two were handed over to the police who freed them claiming that they were not involved in the case as was revealed in a lie-detection test.
Alleging that the crime branch police were unnecessarily beating around the bush, Madhav Chaitanya told the HC that although he was the informant and key eye witness in the case, he was not examined by the prosecution nor was any test identification parade conducted for him to identify the nine accused arrested by the crime branch police in the case.
A fast track court in Kandhamal district is currently holding trial of the murder of 80-year-old Hindu seer and four of his disciples.
