Bhubaneswar: Odisha’s DG Prisons Susanta Kumar Nath was booked for allegedly sexually harassing a subordinate staff member and was shifted from the post pending an investigation, officials said Sunday.
Along with the senior IPS officer, who is one of the aspirants for the DGP post in the state, a friend of his was also booked in the same case.
The government transferred Nath as an officer on special duty (OSD) in the Home Department, an inconsequential post, pending investigation, officials said.
A case was registered against Nath and his friend, Kudleep Rath, under BNS sections involving sexual harassment, criminal intimidation and common intention.
A case was registered against the two at Choudwar Police Station in Cuttack district on October 31. Inspector Bikash Sethy was appointed the investigation officer in the matter.
According to the complaint lodged by the alleged victim, who was a jailor, Rath allegedly made phone calls and sent her “suggestive and unwelcome” messages a few times since August 2025, asking her to meet the IPS officer for dinner.
The woman also claimed that, “after she rejected the invitation, she was falsely implicated in a case involving the escape of prisoners from a jail under her charge.”
When contacted by PTI, the 59-year-old IPS officer of the 1993 batch did not respond to calls and messages.
He is one of the aspirants for the post of the director general of police, the selection process for which is underway at the UPSC, officials said.
According to the FIR, Nath had asked the victim to allow Rath to visit Choudwar Circle Jail in Cuttack, where she was the jailor, in July 2025. Rath took her phone number and allegedly started sending messages that were “suggestive and unwelcome”.
On August 29 last year, Rath allegedly telephoned the complainant and invited her to a restaurant in Cuttack for dinner with Nath. In September 2025, he again invited her to a hotel for a dinner/party as the IPS officer “wanted to meet her alone”.
On both occasions, she rejected the invitations, according to the complaint, a copy of which is with PTI.
“Because I declined the unwelcome personal invitation and did not comply with the demands or expectations conveyed through Rath, I am being targeted by the DG Prisons since then,” she alleged in her complaint.
During the Durga Puja in October last year, two undertrial prisoners escaped from Choudwar Circle Jail. She was subsequently transferred to Kantabanji sub-jail, but she could not join immediately due to health issues.
The complainant said she joined duty in December 2025, but again fell ill and was admitted to a government hospital.
The victim alleged that her signature and documents were manipulated by the senior superintendent of the Choudwar jail to implicate her in the escape case.
Later, she lodged a complaint against the jail superintendent, and the case is under investigation now, according to the FIR.
She was suspended from service in February this year, and her subsistence allowance was allegedly withheld for nearly six months, causing financial hardship to her and her two minor daughters.
The allowance was released on August 4, 2026, following the intervention of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), she said.
“The chronology of events clearly demonstrates that Nath’s attempts to compel me to meet him alone at a hotel, and my refusal to submit to his sexual advances, resulted in retaliatory actions against me,” the police complaint read.
Following the registration of the case, the Odisha government transferred Nath to the Home Department as an OSD, officials said.
Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievance, Law and Justice, headed by Odisha’s Rajya Sabha MP Sujeet Kumar, summoned the home secretary and other officers concerned on November 3 in connection with the case.