Odisha HC orders CBI probe into missing bank locker case
The mysterious case of a lawyer’s safe deposit locker which went missing along with gold ornaments and valuables reportedly worth more than Rs 30 lakh from the Chandi Chhak branch of Canara Bank in Cuttack six years ago is back in focus with the Orissa High Court ordering a CBI probe into it.
Earlier the high court had ordered a probe into the matter by the state CID-Crime Branch on August 8, 2019, after the lawyer Himanshu Patnaik and his wife Jyotsna Rani sought intervention in the inaction of the police.
As per a complaint lodged with Cantonment police station on November 30, 2017, the lawyer claimed he still had the keys to the locker in the bank in which he had kept his family’s valuables. However, the bank officials maintained the locker was no longer available for use as it had already been surrendered.
The couple had filed a fresh petition seeking a CBI probe alleging the failure of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the state CID-Crime Branch to find out the real culprits and trace their valuable articles. Advocate Jaydip Pal, arguing on behalf of the petitioner, submitted that the state investigating agency has not been able to conclude the investigation and file a chargesheet in the case even after four years.
Taking serious note of it, Justice AK Mohapatra observed, “On careful examination of the materials before this court by the investigating agency, this court was shocked to learn that the valuable articles of the petitioners just vanished in thin air from the public sector bank and the investigating agency after a thorough investigation (as claimed by such agency) found no clue whatsoever as to what happened to the valuable articles belonging to the petitioners.”
Accordingly, Justice Mohapatra also observed, “In the aforesaid factual backdrop particularly keeping in view the sluggish manner in which the investigation has been conducted in the present case, this court is of the view that the same would definitely result in miscarriage of justice unless this court intervenes in the matter and directs for reinvestigation of the matter by an independent agency like the CBI.”
Justice Mohapatra, while expecting SP, CBI Bhubaneswar to make every endeavour to conclude the investigation as expeditiously as possible preferably within three months stated, “In fact, in the factual background of the present case, the bank is a nationalised bank comes under the Union government and, accordingly, CBI is the appropriate agency to re-investigate into the matter. However, the same was not done at the initial stage by handing over the investigation to the CBI”.
