Cuttack: The Orissa High Court Monday granted one more week to the state government for submitting the report of the PK Mohanty Judicial Commission probing the chopping off of palms of victims killed in the Kalinga Nagar firing in Jajpur district in 2006.
Earlier, the court had fixed Monday as the deadline for the state government to file the report on the firing incident in which 13 tribals had died. However, during Monday’s hearing, the state government failed to submit the report and sought more time.
Justice Sanjay Kumar Mishra then granted one more week to the state government and said that it would be the last chance to file the report.
Sources said that the Mohanty Commission has already submitted a detailed report to the state government on the incident that occurred January 2, 2006. The HC sought to know what points the probe commission had made in its report. According to sources, police and tribals had a violent clash on that fateful day at Kalinga Nagar where Tatas had acquired land for a steel project. At least 13 tribals had died in the police firing.
Among the deceased, post-mortem was done on six bodies the same night at the district headquarters hospital. However, the doctors could only ascertain the identity of one person. The doctors had chopped off and stored the palms of the deceased to ascertain their identity and for the purpose of identification by their families as the hospital mortuary did not have enough facilities to store the bodies in full.
After the shocking incident was highlighted in a section of the media, it caused a hue and cry and the Orissa Human Rights Commission (OHRC) took cognisance of the issue. The rights body, in its report, observed that the doctors had violated their service conduct rules by disfiguring bodies of the deceased persons while carrying out autopsies.
Acting on the rights body’s report, the state government had suspended three doctors who had conducted the post-mortem and issued show-cause notices to them as to why disciplinary action would not be taken against them.
Challenging the report of the rights body, one of the doctors moved the High Court, praying to dismiss the action taken by the state.
Taking up the doctor’s plea, the HC had ruled that no punitive action should be taken against the doctors. Subsequently, the state government had revoked the suspension of the doctors.
However, the hearing of the petition which was filed challenging the rights body’s order is still under consideration of the HC.
PNN
