Attempts to foil Health Minister’s assurance; only the rich to get safe blood!

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

In reply to an adjournment motion moved by Opposition Chief Whip Prasad Harichandan on 1st September 2012, Health Minister Dr. Damodar Raut had assured that Orissa would adopt NAT PCR system to ensure appropriate screening of blood to avoid AIDS from transfusion.

A boy of only 17 months was found infected with AIDS by accepting transfusion of blood obtained from Muncipal Hospital Blood Bank, Bhubaneswar. The news was broke by orissamatters.com in 8 July 2012 and Sri Harichndan had very ably brought the matter to the attention of the Assembly.

Dr. Raut in his reply noted that people of Orissa have made monumental mark in blood donation and from 126076 units in 2000; blood collection has reached 307022 units in 2011. People’s eagerness to donate blood to save the lives of fellow citizens needs be equally honored by the government’s readiness to supply safe blood to needing patients through proper screening. Therefore, Dr. Raut said, in a meeting on 22 August 2012 the Government had consulted all the Blood Bank Directors and Officers in a conference and had taken a decision to jettison the rapid test method of screening and adopt ELISA method to screen out AIDS virus in the Blood Banks.

As Harichandan pointed out that ELISA is not the latest technology to screen AIDS virus, but NAT PCR is, the Minister had appreciated the position and had assured to adopt the latest method; for nothing is more valuable than human life and moreover, as patients’ confidence in blood banks would diminish if AIDS virus escapes the deficient screening. He however had declared that the method being costly, the State would start with four major blood banks: one each attached to the three Government Medical Colleges and the Capital Hospital Blood Bank. The facility would be extended to all the Blood Banks of Orissa in course of time, he had assured the Assembly.

The Budget of Health department placed in and awaiting approval of the Assembly has made a token provision for replacement of ELISA with NAT PCR in the aforesaid four Blood Banks.

But, the Finance department has planted a rider that the cost of NAT PCR screening should be collected from the patients. If the rider is not dropped, only the rich will benefit; because the poor patients cannot afford the screening cost.

The present Finance Minister was the Minister of Health when deficient screening through old method of ELISA had infested the seventeen months old child with AIDS and the Orissa High Court had punished the state Government with cash penalty of Rs.3 lakhs for supply of HIV infested blood to the boy without perfect screening. When he is the Finance minister, his department is asking the Health department to impose such a heavy cost on poor patients on accounts of NAT PCR that it will never be possible for them to get pure blood through perfect screening!

Should the poor people have no right to safe blood? Should the latest and the safest NAT PCR screening for which the government in the Health department has put budgetary provisions on the anvil of the Assembly be available only to the rich?

Should the Finance department be allowed to foil the most welcome welfare proposal of the Health department?

Should the Assembly allow its own anxiety for safe blood to patients be steered into benefit of the moneyed men alone?

Filed under: administration, Animadversion, Editorials, Health, news, orissa, politics, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Orissa Government’s step-motherly treatment to farmers exposed in the Assembly

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The Opposition exposed the step-motherly treatment meted out to farmers by the State Government in course of an adjournment motion on the necessity of bonus on paddy and pension to farmers, as on Saturday, while initiating the debate, Congress stalwart Santos Singh Saluja gave a detail picture of how the cultivators are being harassed by officials in nexus with private rice mill owners and paddy merchants.

The farmers are being forced to distress selling their products as officials in charge of procurement are not performing for reasons best known to them.

Quoting the State agriculture Minister, Saluja pointed out that during the period from 2000 to 2008, 2574 farmers had committed suicide under duress due to distress sale of their paddy as officials in nexus with millers did not help them with procurement. The crop insurance scheme not implemented in right earnest, in an industry-induced inclement climate, as standing crops succumb to calamities, disadvantaged farmers unable to repay their loans, are committing suicide, he pointed out reprimanding scathingly the government for its anti-people manners and short-sightedness.

Opposition Chief Whip Prasad Harichandan came down heavily on the government for suppression of the report of the Agriculture commission and for lack of industrial approach to agriculture and the state’s blatant failure to enhance incentive price of paddy. When in the last fifty years the price of gold and the rate of salary of the government officials have a 150 fold increase, the rate of paddy has gone lower in terms of devalued rupee, he said. The apathy shown to agriculture is precipitating suicide in the farming community so menacingly that there are at least three suicides per week in the state, he lamented.

Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh stripped the Government layer by layer for its total failure in the front of agro based industries. Far from creating any ventures in agro-industrial sphere, it has failed to maintain the cold-storage units, spinning mills, Sugar factories and other agro-industries established during the Congress regime, he observed.

Independent member Pratap Sarangi castigated the government for its lack of concern for the farmers when its extraordinary zeal for Vedanta and Sainik is enough to indicate how dubious has become the conduct of administration. He asked as to why the farmers shall not be ensured with pension when government servants and legislators are provided with pension.

In call attention over the issue, treasury-bencher Anant Das opined that the principal opposition party in the Assembly – the Congress – should prevail upon its own government in the center to ensure farmers with pension and support money for paddy. His colleagues Dr. Nrusingh Sahu, Prabhat Biswal, Prafulla Samal were almost of the same view.

In reply, agriculture minister Debi Pr. Mishra asserted that there is no negligence to agriculture from the side of administration. Suicide by members of the farming community cannot be attributed to official negligence to agriculture as no such allegation is based on evidences to such effect.

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Oath is co-terminus: Orissa Governor in illegal incumbency

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Subhas chandra Pattanayak

assemblyThe budget session of Orissa Assembly commenced on the Valentine’s Day with M. C. Bhandare reading out his customary address as Governor of Orissa.

As he started addressing the House, he faced protests from the Opposition that culminated into a boycott.
The boycott by the Congress party proceeded from its protest against the insipid address of the Governor, as to it, that was nothing but vomit of the State Government’s vapid versions, aimed at reducing the House podium to a medium of its political propaganda.

But the BJP boycott was against misuse of the Assembly by Bhandare who has lost his legitimacy to address the Assembly.

Bhandare is discernibly the most controversial Governor the state has ever had. When he has failed to act as expected of a Governor in times of need of democracy, he has made mockery of the role of Chancellor of Universities to the detriment of education and embarrassment of educationists.

However, by not leaving the Raj Bhawan on completion of his term in August 2012, he has belittled the dignity of the post of Governor.

He has invoked Art.156 (4) of the Constitution of India which is a proviso to Clause 3 of the Article. It allows the Governor to “continue to hold office until his successor enters upon his office”. Bhandari is not entitled to take advantage of this proviso.

From the scheme of this proviso, it is clear that a person may continue in the office of the Governor till his “successor” enters upon his office. This means, when somebody is appointed to become the “successor”, but under certain circumstances he/she is taking time to join, the outgoing person shall continue to hold office during that transit period only. Otherwise, the Governor is to relinquish office at the end of stipulated term of five years, by handing over the charge to the Chief Justice of the State, from whom he/she had taken the oath of office under Art.159.

Both the Articles read together make it unambiguously clear that the Oath of Office a Governor is bound to be administered with at the time joining, is co-terminus with the term of his/her tenure of five years.

It is shocking that Bhandare is continuing as Governor sans a valid oath of office. And, the government of Naveen Patnaik, known for inability to understand the laws and ability to violate the laws, has allowed him to address the Assembly on commencement of its budget session.

Sad, the Legislative Assembly has been used by the State government as a slaughter house of Law relating to the Governor by allowing Bhandare to address it as the Governor when clearly he is in illegal incumbency.

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Investigation Needed into Whether or Not the 6th September Violence was Government Induced

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Political climate of Orissa is agog with speculations over investigations into the 6th September violence that Bhubaneswar witnessed in the context of a Congress congregation. In our view, investigation is needed into whether or not the violence was state induced. Let us elaborate.

The Congress had given a ‘Vidhansabha Gherau’ call and its members, supporters and members of the general public whom the call was not inappropriate had joined the ‘Gherau’ program.

It was a political action by the main Opposition in the State against misrule by the Government.

It was very natural for the Government to try to defeat the Congress purpose.

The heavy presence of police with mob controlling preparedness is indicative of how the Government was looking at the congregation, even before its commencement.

To the people in power, against whose misrule the ‘gherau’ call was given, the responders to the call were not political people, but a mob.

So, it must have been a must for the people in power to project the congregation as a mob.

And for this specific purpose, they must have pressed their trusted men to mingle with the Congress supporters to act as agent provocateurs in the congregation in order to justify use of State-terror against the protesters to shatter the congregation. This is indicated by the brickbats that eventually occurred.

The police, with x-raying eyes kept open, was so very overwhelmingly present on every road, on every lane and sub-lane to the place of the congregation that without help of the police or unless the police had deliberately closed its eyes to ruling party hoodlums entering into the area well equipped with bricks and stones to create the disorder, these arsenals could never have reached the spot. With every photo journalist focussed on the place of the congregation, miscreants entering into the area with throwable objects must certainly have escaped the lenses.

On the other hand, these shenanigans were not catchable by camera. Therefore, the TV cameras missed it and therefore it was not presented in live telecast of this incident. The viewers of TV watched the brickbats, but failed to see who allowed the arsenals enter into the area; because that remained beyond the cameras’ catching capacity.

TV telecasters’ inability to capture the shenanigans does not absolve the government of the crime of misusing police to unleash State-terror on political protesters against its misrule.

But cameras have caught the visible pictures of police action and of protesters’ reaction thereto. We have just kept a few of those pictures on records as a contribution to living history. Nothing personal. No bias.

Our report has shown how the editor of Sambad Soumya Ranjan Patnaik was brutally assaulted by the police when there was no threat to public peace from him and in a place where he was not caught involved with any offense. Was there any reason to beat him in the residential area of a ruling party MLA, if police was not used to cause the chaos?

Police personnel in plain clothes were also seen chasing the protesters, which makes the government side playing the mischief more visible.

Not only ORISSA MATTERS, but also all the newspapers of the State have presented photos of how protesters have been beaten up by the police and like us, they also have shown pictures of how the beaten up people have retorted. Come the Assembly session, the M.G.Road gets choked with barricades made with bamboos in both the sides. The protesters beaten mercilessly by the police, at the end of all the limits of tolerance, seem to have used the same barricades to pull out bamboos to use in self defense.

We very strongly hold, had the Government not viewed the congregation as a mob from the beginning, and had it not deployed so huge packs of police with mob-controlling equipments, and had the agent provocateurs not been helped to play tricks on the congregation, and had the police not closed its eyes to entry of agent provocateurs into the congregation area with arsenals for brickbats, and had the government, instead of barricading the area, allowed the Congress to proceed peacefully with the Gherau, the Congress program could have just been symbolic and M.G. Road would never have seen the acts of violence on September 6.

So, who indulged in violence is not the issue. The issues for investigation should be: why the Government did not allow the Congress to conduct the peaceful “Vidhansabha Gherau” when permission was sought for the same under the police act and by grant of permission, the legitimacy of the Opposition stance was accepted; and why the Police did not stop the arsenals entering into the area of the congress congregation by the agent provocateurs?

Hence, investigation needed into whether or not the 6th September Violence was Government induced.

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ORISSA MATTERS Exposed a Malady that reached a Remedy, thanks to Prasad Harichandan and the new Health Minister

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

ORISSA MATTERS had exposed a malady in Orissa’s health care sector, which, thanks to Opposition Chief Whip Prasad Harichandan and a number of alert MLAs and a considerate minister-in-charge has reached a remedy on September 1.

While investigating into how far welfare verdicts are being honored by the Government, ORISSA MATTERS had stumbled upon a milestone judgment delivered by the Orissa High Court a year ago on 28 July 2011 in the matter of compensation claimed by the father of a small kid of 17 months, infected with AIDS because of transfusion of unsafe blood supplied to him by a government blood bank in course of his operation.

In response to the case, the blood bank as well as the State Government had claimed that “safe blood”, determined to be so by screening in ELISA method, was supplied to the kid.

But the kid’s advocate Mrs. Sujata Jena had put up a tremendous argument. She had established that ELISA method was not efficient beyond doubt to detect HIV in its “window period” which comprise about three months from the day of infection.

If blood is drawn from a HIV infected person within the first three months of infection, the virus may escape detection through ELISA screening and may appear to be “safe” even though HIV positive. This had happened to the kid, Jena had argued.

Accepting her well researched argument, the High Court had come to the conclusion that the disaster could not have befallen the kid had the blood given to him on an operation table could have been screened through the “latest technology” called Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) in Polymer Chain Reaction (PCR) method.

And, thus determining, the High Court had awarded a compensation of Rs. 3,00,000/- to the child including cost of his further treatment to be borne by the State, and had issued a mandamus that “the Government must ensure that in all Blood Banks, the PCR method is available to identify the virus of HIV during window period”.

But as is its wont, the government run by Naveen Patnaik did not welcome the mandamus.

Therefore, despite a bureaucratically constituted committee comprising eminent serologists and Professors of microbiology in all the Government Medical Colleges of Orissa having “unanimously” resolved on 25 Feb.2012 that the NAT PCR technology, being “the latest and foremost technology available in India”, “need to be introduced for screening of the blood units to reduce the gray zone period of Transfusion Transmissible Infections like HIV-I, HIV-II, Hepatitis-B and HCV”, the political Government ignored the same.

We exposed this malady in these pages on 8 July 2012 as it came to our attention while investigating into non-implementation of welfare verdicts.

It was a cue for other newspapers in Orissa to stress on the necessity of blood screening in NAT PCR method.

But to our shock, the Government wanted another committee to undo the 25th February “unanimous” recommendation of the committee aforesaid.

The new committee, wherefrom the experts of the previous committee were kept out, rejected the recommendation for NAT PCR method and resolved on 24 July 2012 to challenge the High Court order dated 28 July 2011 through a review petition.

Harichandan turned it turtle

As we again exposed this mischief, it attracted the attention of Sri Harichandan, the well erudite Opposition stalwart. With the Assembly in session, he headed an adjournment notice that came up for discussion on September 1. Government got the jolt.

In initiating the debate, Sri Harichandan completely razed down the 24 July decision of the Government in Health department that had tried to justify non-implementation of the High Court order for adoption of NAT PCR method for blood screening.

He cited National Blood Policy and many other referral documents including the 1996 Supreme Court verdict in Common Cause case to demolish the government stance reflected in July 24 resolution and castigated the government for the contempt shown to the High Court order and for discernible lack of concern for human life as is seen in its reluctance to equip blood banks with the latest technology to ensure that the bloods collected and supplied by them do not carry latent viruses of HIV-I, HIV-II, or other Transfusion Transmissible Infections like Hepatitis-B and HCV as happens in the “window period”.

If HIV and other killer viruses continue to spread from the blood supplied by blood banks, patients would fear to take blood transfusion and all the blood banks will collapse, causing thereby serious dislocation in health care in the State, he warned. Though the Red Cross is tagged to Blood Banks, it cannot bear the cost of NAT and hence the State must provide necessary fund for adoption of the method, he said.

Besides the fire his speech usually emits, he was so much his persuasive best in this matter of immense public importance, that, despite the 24 July resolution to challenge the High Court verdict, the Minister of Health announced that the Government will adopt the NAT technology to obtain safe blood for transfusion.

Stop all avoidable luxurious spending by ministers and bureaucrats and give primacy to blood screening by NAT PCR method instead of avoiding it under the plea of financial constraints, said Pratap Sarangi. Dr. Prafulla Majhi supported the demand for adoption of NAT technology in place of ELISA even as Dr. Nrusingh Sahu cited the cost factor in support of continuance of ELISA method. Dr. Ramesh Chandra Chyau Pattanayak and Alekh Jena contributed their input to the debate.

In reply to the debate, Minister of Health Dr. Damodar Raut pointed out that the departmental reluctance to adopt NAT PCR method was driven by, cost factor besides, lack of direction in NACO and NBTC guidelines.

But, he confessed, howsoever marginal be the failure in detection of HIV through ELISA, it is most unfortunate that a kid of only 17 months was infected by AIDS, which is being attributed to unsafe blood transfusion.

He announced to introduce blood screening through NAT method in the four most busy blood banks in the State, to begin with.

So bureaucratic bungling may no more stymie the latest technology and NAT should soon be in use in the blood banks operating in each of the three Medical Colleges and the Capital Hospital, Bhubaneswar.

For us in ORISSA MATTERS, it was a day of victory, as the malady we had exposed got remedied.

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MLA Jhinna Hikaka Released on Accepting Praja Court Directive to Resign from Assembly

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Ruling party MLA Jhinna Hikaka is set free by abductors after 34 days of life in three different camps allegedly of Maoists on accepting the directive of the Praja Court (Court of the common man) to resign from Orissa Legislative Assembly.

In the Praja Court where 150 tribal representatives heard him, he confessed to have failed in developing the area under his constituency since his election in 2009. He confessed to have failed in ensuring good administration and in curbing the ongoing misrule. He confessed to have failed to stop police atrocities, false cases and other forms of state terror that the innocent people are being subjected to by the administration that protects the looters of welfare funds and prosecutes the opponents of lootraj. He expressed willingness to resign from the Assembly and the ruling party in protest against the government’s negligence to the people in order to make the people of Orissa aware of anti-people conduct of the administration.

To queries, he answered that the Maoists had never misbehaved with him. They are fighting against misrule in a pattern they deem proper and therefore, he has no grievance against them.

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We Need Such A Law

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

In March, the Additional Sessions Judge holding Fast Track Court No. 2, at Phulbani had acquitted 142 persons arrested by the Brahmunigaon police as their offense allegedly committed in 2007 could not be proved.

So also the Additional Sessions Judge holding Fast Track Court No.1 had acquitted 14 persons arrested in a 2008 case by G Udayagiri Police, as the prosecution could not establish the charges.

In yet another case, the First Track Court No.2 has on April 21 acquitted 7 persons arrested by Tikabali police against alleged offenses committed in 2008, as there were no evidence to prove them guilty.

Is the acquittal enough?

It is time to cogitate this question.

People of Kandhamal district are too simple and ignorant to estimate what damage they have been forced to suffer being accused under-trial.

But when they are adjudged not guilty, because the prosecution had no evidence against them, they deserve to be automatically compensated in cash for the damage they have financially, physically, mentally and socially suffered.

Steps in this regard in appropriate forums are essential.

When the police fails to prove the charges it levels against any citizen, the police officer responsible for loss of his freedom and imposition of under-trial stigma on him, must be punished for misuse of power in arresting the person, for having falsely implicated the person against whom there is no evidence or for suppression of evidence to help the accused escape punishment.

Orissa Assembly Standing Committee on Home Department, in its report to the House in the Budget Session, has come down heavily upon deliberate dereliction of duty marked in the police organization. As non-registration of FIR is an offense which the police is asked not to resort to, institution of false cases against any citizen by the police also must be viewed as an offense.

The acquitted accused must be compensated with appropriate amount of cash to be collected from police officer responsible for his suffering.

We need such a law.

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Nalini Mohanty No More; Orissa Bereft of a Popular Politician

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

A fighter against many odds from the young days, Nalini Mohanty gave a fight against death till breathing his last in the afternoon of Friday. Orissa lost a popular politician.

He was a smiling face in Orissa Assembly whose wits were matched with preparedness to participate in its proceedings. Minister many a times, he was seldom in controversy, but always in excellent control over his portfolios.

Majority of his career spent in anti-Congress camp, he had succumbed to ‘supremo-syndrome’ in BJD and joined the Congress, where he had soon been recognized as an asset.

While in Opposition, his attacks on the treasury benches were razor-sharp, yet his target was never personally wounded. As a minister he was seldom stonewalled; but whenever he was being horned in, the fellows in the officers gallery were sure that he was not letting them down.

In his demise, we have a feeling of loss too. Leaders across political parties, watchdogs irrespective of allegiance, general public of and outside his constituency have paid him obituary tributes. We add ours to them.

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Abduction of MLA Jhina Hikaka: Whither are We?

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

“The general public of Koraput District are facing numerous socio-economic hardships due to liquor trade and also dying premature due to consumotion of liquor. So there should be total prohibition in this scheduled District for the improvement and all round development of the masses as well as locality”.

Thus had written Jhina Hikaka, MLE from Laxmipur to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in a letter he had coauthored with other elected representatives of Koraput District and were he to attend the Assembly, he was to stress on this in his debate. This was not acceptable to his party, the ruling party.

In this letter, he had also stressed on preservation of the eco-system of the hill ranges of Mali and Deomali. When this was also not palatable to the ruling party, his participation in the Assembly might possibly have embarassed the government were he to make a mention of this matter.

The letter had also stressed on stoppage of state terror perpitrated on innocent people in the guise of hounding left ultras just to subject the people to waves of intimidation so that they remain too panicked to open their mouths against illadministration. Had he participated in Assembly proceedings, there was possibility of this matter gushing out into debates. That could have embarassed the government.

“We further request you to undertake steps to curtail PC (percentage) to government officials in contract works”, the letter underlined. This is how the letter not only stressed on end of a wrong practice, but also exposed how development projects are being looted by contractors in nexus with authorites as work orders are being placed with the contractors by officials pocketing portions of their profit by means of percentage. This matter could have embarassed the government had Hikaka been present in the Assembly to participate in debates.

Another point stressed in the letter is anathema to Naveen Patnaik’s administration as it prods the Chief Miniter into action for release of the members of Chasi Mulia Sangh, imlicated in false cases by the police and wrongfully kept in jails even after competent courts have acquitted them. Had Hekaka got the opportunity, he could have raised this point to the embarrassment of the CM in real sense.

Is it, hence, possible that his alleged abduction is engineered by the ruling party to prempt any debate on these points in the ongoing session?

Question may arise as to why he alone has been picked up – if at all the ruling party has engineered it – when two other MLAs, Rabi Narayan Nanda of Joypore and Raghuram Podal of Koraput, who are also competent to raise the issue in the Assembly, had also subscribed the letter?

The possible answer lies in the distingishability of Hikaka from others of BJD, as it is he, who alone is close to Chasi Mulia Sangh to the extent of being the factor of BJD’s alliance with it in the Panchayat polls that has, on the basis of this alliance only, given the ruling party the Chair of the Koraput Zilla Parisad.

Whither really are we?

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Swain Returns to Assembly // NOW THE QUESTION IS: WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO THE PERIOD UNDER NULLIFICATION?

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Ranendra Pratap Swain, victim of BJD’s internecine leg-pulling in 2009 elections to Orissa Assembly won the re-election at Athgarh, which he could have also won at that time had his party not sabotaged him, using the Returning Officer in illegal rejection of his nomination papers.

BJD had spent, according to a source in that party, about a crore of Rupees against Swain in litigations up to the Supreme Court by engaging, off the records, costliest lawyers of the country in defense of Swain’s rival, Ramesh Raut.

Raut was working like a pageboy in BJD office before being clandestinely readied to file nomination papers against Swain, that had made him de facto candidate of that party after success of the scheme to keep Swain out of fray.

Where from he got the massive amount of money to defray the costliest lawyers’ charges? Possibilities are two: (1) the BJD that had coined the scheme to block Swain’s re-entry into the Assembly for reasons discussed earlier in these pages, had borne Raut’s litigation cost. (2) after being elected to the Assembly, Raut had amassed such massive amount of money that he had no difficulty in defraying the huge cost of litigation.

When there are peons and night watchmen that have become multimillionaires by exploiting the climate of corruption the Naveen Patnaik’s government has created in Orissa, it cannot be said that it was not possible for Raut to amass huge money after being a MLA in the same climate .

But which of the above two possibilities is the reality can be ascertained if official agencies detecting tax evasion are asked to investigate into Raut’s litigation cost.

Swain’s return that has exposed the foul play BJD had played at Athgarh craves investigations into the financial foul play enacted in the intervening period, which is yet kept shrouded under mystery as yet, though it smacks of secret income and tax evasion.

But as far as Orissa Assembly is concerned, the question that Swain’s return has raised is unique and urgent.

The Orissa High Court had stripped layer by layer the illegalities resorted to in rejection of Swain’s nomination papers and declared the election in Athgarh null and void. Raut had challenged the HC verdict in the Supreme Court, but failed. So, legally, election of 2009 in Athgarh was no election.

In view of this, Raut’s participation, if any, in the Assembly must stand obliterated with retrospective effect. Had the Court order does not allow Raut to have any life as a member of the Assembly as his election is declared null and void.

So, now, it is the minimum duty of the Speaker to delete from Assembly records the participation of Raut in its entirety. When he is legally not a member since the day of his election, his oath as a member of the House must also be deleted. Therefore, all the salaries and perquisites he has received as MLA must be must be calculated in terms of money and recovered from him with retrospective effect. The Assembly accounts section should immediately be asked to complete this calculation and communicate the the same to him demanding recovery thereof. If the Speaker prefers to waive such dues, he can do so maximum up to the day of the High Court order. The HC order had unseated him with retrospective effect. Had he resigned immediately, the salaries and other benefits he had drawn might have seemed justifies, as, on the strength of the election, he had participated in the Assembly businesses till that day. But by not resigning from membership and going instead to the Supreme Court, he had continue as a member subject to decision of the Supreme Court and drawn the salaries and perquisites commutable in terms of money at his own risk. So, from the day of the High Court order till the day of his termination, whatever he has received materially from the Assembly was undue receipt. The Speaker has no prerogative to waive the dues he has received unduly by pursuing the luxury of litigation in the Supreme Court.

So, besides deletion of every participation of Raut from the Assembly records, it is incumbent upon the Speaker to recover from Raut the money he has unduly drawn from the House and to declare Swain as the representative of the Assembly with retrospective effect from the 2009 elections, activating his membership only from the day of his oath taking for financial purpose.

Anything else would create wrong precedences in handling the period of nullification as the election of 2009 in Athgarh has been declared unchangeably null and void.

Filed under: administration, Animadversion, Editorials, elections 2009, news, orissa, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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