By Our Correspondent
CUTTACK/BHUBANESWAR: In a short relief, Orissa High Court on Monday granted interim stay on National Commission for Scheduled Tribes order to arrest Keonjhar collector Ashish Thakare.
Justice Biswanath Rath adjudicating over a writ petition filed by Thakare ordered that the NCST order, which had been passed on April 11 will remain stayed till the next listing of the case after six weeks.
The HC, however, made it clear that the pendency of the writ petition shall not stand in the way of NCST to proceed in the inquiry involved if any and falls within its domain to arrive at conclusion even in the absence of the collector by providing the right of submission to the representative of the collector on appropriate notice.
The HC also observed that the case, prima facie, appears to have been tilted in favor of the district collector.
The move of NCST had come after District Collector Ashish Thakre failed to appear for the commission’s hearing in the State Capital on April 4. Following this, the panel issued the arrest warrant against the Collector and directed the DGP to arrest the Collector by 11 am of April 13.
The NCST had also asked Odisha DGP Sunil Bansal to arrest the errant Collector and produce him before the Commission’s office in New Delhi. The Commission had been serving summons to the bureaucrat to attend hearing on numerous occasions since June 2021. But the Collector has not responded to any of them.
