Orissa Matters

Judicial Enquiry Essential to determine if Justice Laxmikanta Mohapatra did not act a conduit for a Chit Fund Mafia

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

(With core information from Jayanta Kumar Das)

Had Justice Laxmikanta Mohapatra not acted a conduit for chit fund operator Pradeep Kumar Sethy, he could never have acquired a ‘B’ category plot measuring 4000 sq.ft. in the most lucrative Bidanasi Housing Project area of Markata Nagar of Cuttack and by way of its transfer, would never have formed the triangle with the State’s Advocate General Asoka Mohanty.

RTI activist Jayanta Das deserves all praise for having dug out information that are to be dealt with here. The information is available in social media, as he and Alok Jena have shared them with the society. I was expecting Justice Mohapatra to react. He is silent. Advocate General Mohanty could have also come out with his clarification. He has not. Padeep Sethy has been arrested and facing trial for cheating the chit fund depositors. With him entangled in this plot scandal are Justice Mohapatra, then of Orissa High Court on one side and Orissa’s Advocate General Asoka Mohanty on the other!

This triangular scandal has another side also. We are conducting an enquiry thereon and will deal with the same after our investigation is over.

But it is time to say, to us it seems, Justice Mohapatra has acted a conduit for the chit fund mafia Pradeep Sethy.

It seems Justice Mohapatra has acted from the beginning to arrange the plot for the economic offender. He had no real necessity for the residential plot in Markata Nagar of Cuttack City. This is evidenced in his later declaration that, being a permanent resident of Cuttack City, neither he nor any of his family would ever need a residential plot in any of the housing projects of CDA. So, evidently there was no urgency for him to use official letterhead of the High Court to apply for the plot under discretionary quota which is ethically meant for helping people who are in very urgent need of a residential plot, but quick allotment of the required land to them is not possible in the normal process. The urgency for the allocation expressed in his application is obviously not for his use, but for circumventing the allocation process for a shadow beneficiary who subsequently transpired to be a chit fund cheat. Let us see why this occurs to us.

The ‘B’ category plot could not have normally come to Sethy. Not even to Laxmikanta Mohapatra as an Individual in normal allocation process. So Mohapatra used the official letterhead of the Orissa High Court to browbeat the authorities and acquired the plot by way of allocation from the discretionary quota of the Chairman of Cuttack Development Authority.

To bag the plot, he hoodwinked the law by crafty suppression of the fact that he has already had his residential house in the city of Cuttack. He is a permanent resident of Stoney Road, Chandini Chowk, Cuttack. The law says, a resident of the City cannot be allotted with a residential plot from the CDA in the city of Cuttack. Therefore, suppressing that he has permanent house in the Cuttack City, he stated in his application dated October 11, 2006. “I have no land at Markata Nagar, Abhinaba Bidanasi, Cuttack either in my name or in the name of any of my family members”, as if Markata Nagar is a different place and not a part of the City of Cuttack. CDA also helped him in this mischief in the body of allocation.

The use of the High Court letterhead and his position as Judge of the Orissa High Court was too intimidating for the CDA staff to examine the legality and ethicality and eligibility aspects in allocation of the land to him. And, consequently, Plot No. 11-38/1332 measuring 4000 sq.ft. in ‘B’ category was given to him for only Rs.9,50,500/- under order No. 12699 of CDA on 25.5.2007. Mohapatra took over possession of the plot on 23,07.07. But did not bother about execution of the lease deed. Had the deed been executed, he would have been required to pay to the exchequer in form of Stamps. Non-execution of the lease deed for several years after allocation of the land to and taking over of the land by Justice Mohapatra was deliberate, because, a design was already on the anvil to transfer the plot to Sethy with a huge profit margin by way of commercial use of the plot, though the allocation was strictly for residential use of Justice Mohapatra.

Mahapatra had no right to use the plot in commercial transaction. Firstly, being a judge, he should not have sought for personal benefit at the discretion of the CDA chairman, which was de facto bound to make him obliged to the boss of a commercial institute that deals with allocation of plots and contracts of developmental works necessitating judicial intervention as and when occasion arises. Secondly, had he wanted not to continue with the allotted plot, he should have surrendered the same to the CDA before making any value addition thereto. He did not do. He had a design to make a commercial profit out of it. He has made the commercial transaction behind back of the CDA before the lease deed was executed and has nose led it to put stamp of approval on his commercial deal.

I quote from his affidavit where he has informed the CDA in these words: “I have entered into negotiation with Sri Pradeep Kumar Sethy S/o Rama Chandra Sethy, resident of Ananta Nagar, 6th lane, Berhampur -760005, Dist. Ganjam, Orissa for transfer of the above plot because of my legal necessity and I have received the consideration money amounting to Rs.1,00.00.000/- (Rupees One Crore only) as agreed between us”.

Mark the mischief. He has not made this negotiation with the chit fund mafia Pradeep Sethy with permission of the CDA. He has simply declared that he has entered into negotiation with Sethy to transfer the plot to him by already having received Rs.1 crore as consideration money and has asked the CDA to transfer the said plot to Sethy, as by then the lease deed was not executed. As the lease deed was not executed, he was not to make the registration. The transfer was not to be done in the land registration office of Government of Orissa, but was to be done in the file only in the office of the CDA. So, despite the land transfer made against consideration money amounting to a crore of rupees, the same being done out of the Registration office, the stamps applicable to a Rs.1 crore worth land transaction was not to come to the exchequer.

In order not to give any scope to CDA to allot the plot to any other person than Sethy, Mohapatra stated, “I have not negotiated with any other person for transfer of the plot” and undertook “to hand over possession of the land to Pradeep Kumar Sethy after obtaining permission for transfer of the ownership allotment and before execution of the lease deed in favor of the prospective transferee”.

On receiving this affidavit, CDA “transferred” the plot from Justice Mohapatra to Pradeep Sethy under order No. 8098 dt.23.4.2011 “to be used only for residential purpose” with the stipulation that “the residential building must be constructed within one year from the date of issue of this letter”. This stipulation indicates that no “residential building” was standing on the plot by that date, which prompts us to infer that Justice Mhapatra had lied in the affidavit about standing of a two-storied building in the plot just to add about (90 lakh of rupees worth value to the plot procured by paying the CDA a sum of Rs.9,80,500/- only. Had the double-storied residential building been really there, CDA could not have subjected the transfer of the plot from Mohapatra’s name to Sethy’s name to a non-violable condition that the “residential building must be constructed within one year from the date of issue of the land transfer letter. Mohapatra being a Judge, that too a Chief Justice of a High Court now, it is expected that he should clarify the position for removal of shrouds of suspicion over the issue.

Sethy took possession of the plot on the same day, i.e. 23.4.2011 and without getting the lease deed executed, and violating the condition for residential use of the plot, entered into a negotiation with Advocate General Mohanty to transfer the plot to his name on receipt of Rs.1,00,01,000/- towards consideration money.

Thus, two major transactions worth more than Rs.2 crores was carried out on the same plot twice behind back of the Registration Office, Had the lease deeds been executed promptly after allocation of the land by the CDA, the transfer, instead of the concerned file in the office of the CDA, must have been done in the Land Registrar’s office and huge amounts of revenue in shape of stamps could have come to the State Exchequer then and there. Yet again, it transpires from the communication of CDA to Asoka Mohanty bearing No.6953 dated 22.3.13 that there was no residential building on the plot, for which Mohanty was subjected to the terms and condition that he was to construct the “Residential Building” on the plot as a “must” “within one year from the date of issue of this letter”, failing which, “the lease would be determined and allotment will be cancelled and the possession of the plot would be taken over by the Authority”.
So, here also, evidently the land was transferred to Mohanty without subjecting the said transfer to necessary stamps.

However, Sethy has stated in his affidavit that he was making the transaction with Mohanty “because of personal necessity”. But Justice Mohapatra had made the transaction with Sethy not for personal necessity, but for “Legal necessity”.

What was the “Legal Necessity” of Justice Mohapatra to negotiate with Sethy for transfer of the allocation from his name to Sethy’s name in the file of the CDA?

Unless Justice Mohapatra comes out with details of why it was a “legal necessity” for him to transfer his plot to Pradeep Sethy, it may be difficult to discard the suspicion that he has acted a conduit for the chit fund mafia in the instant case. This angle is is difficult to be discarded in view of the fact that he had not responded to any advertisement of CDA for the plot, but had applied in the High Court pad as it was understood by him that some plots of CDA were available for allotment. Mark the media added above. There he says, “I understand that some plots of land of Cuttack Development Authority are available within Cuttack Municipal area. I have no land Markata Nagar, Abhinav Bidanasi, cuttack……”. The question is, who made him understand this? When the availability of the plot was not advertised, how could he came to know of it? From the developments discussed above, we are inclined to suspect that Sethy had obtained the information and had made Justice Mahapatra apply for the same with yet unknown compulsions, which had forced to hand him over the plot under “legal necessity”. This suspicion cannot end till he gives details of the “legal necessity” and convinces the public that in this scandal, he is innocent.

A sitting Chief Justice of a High Court and an Advocate General of a State Government forming the triangle with a chit fund mafia over the plot in question, an enquiry by the Supreme Court of India into this scandal seems essential to cleanse the judicial system of misusers of their privileged positions. And, the sooner it is done, the better.

Challenges and Opportunities in Jharkhand : The role of Unicef

Dr. Shubhashish Sircar
In Jharkhand, about 40% of the people live below the poverty line, and about half the children younger than three are considered malnourished.

Hilly terrain hampers outreach efforts in some areas of the state.

Until recently, many families followed an old traditions that unwittingly threatened children’s lives. Believing the colostrum to be dirty and useless they would give their newborns goat’s warm milk dripped into their mouths from a cloth.

Old traditions and beliefs required new mothers to discard their colostrum, the first, nutrient-rich breast milk instead of giving it to their newborns. Colostrum is rich in antibodies and protects the baby against many infections and diseases. But, tradition differs and poses a challenge.

Other Challenges and Opportunities:

• Three quarters of young children and adolescent girls are anaemic, and many are deficient in vitamin A • One-third of Jharkhand’s children do not have full immunization against childhood diseases.

• The state’s literacy rate is 66%. Dropout rate among poor, female and tribal children at the elementary education level is high.

• Child marriage is still prevalent in tribal communities.

• A large number of households in rural Jharkhand don’t use toilets. The common village practice of open defecation in neighboring fields is responsible for much ill health and contaminated water supplies • Improved sources of drinking water are not available to 38% of the state’s population. Arsenic and other pollutants are present in many wells in some of the districts.

• About half the families in the state do not use adequately iodized salt, which is important in preventing iodine deficiency that can result in physical and mental retardation.

UNICEF in action

UNICEF is prioritizing reducing the high malnutrition and maternal as well as child mortality rates, and reaching out to the most marginalized families in Jharkhand to address these concerns.

The Dular strategy, which trains village women to counsel new mothers about breastfeeding and proper nutrition, is a successful approach that is already expected to prevent about one quarter of newborn deaths and save the lives of thousands of older babies and children.

The Dular initiative is of particular importance to tribal children who are most vulnerable to disease, malnutrition and education disparities, as prejudice, isolation and misunderstanding make it difficult for these families to access services.

Water and education initiatives are also the focus of UNICEF’s efforts in the state to help disadvantaged children attend school and ensure that all communities have access to safe drinking water.

UNICEF initiatives include:

• Child Survival is an issue of utmost importance to UNICEF.

The Dular programme was successfully initiated a decade ago to train thousands of volunteer village women, called LRP (local resource people), to teach new mothers about the benefits of proper breastfeeding. These volunteers also help local anganwadi or female childcare workers provide information on health and nutrition for older children and mothers.

Now, women in Dular villages are three times more likely than other women to exclusively breastfeed newborns and avoid traditional practices about colostrum.

The percentage of underweight children is much lower, too. The programme has been so successful that plans are afoot to expand the Dular network across Jharkhand. UNICEF and the Government of India also started a three-year project in 2009 to further extend it to 22 million children across India.  Parents and health care workers are learning lifesaving childhood diarrhoea treatment methods with oral rehydration salts and zinc tablets.

• UNICEF supports efforts to distribute iron folic acid supplements to adolescent girls at all schools in the state in an attempt to control anaemia.

• The Weekly Iron Folic Supplementation (WIFS) Programme reaches 3.5 million adolescent girls (both in school and out of school) in all districts through schools and anganwadi centres.

• Vitamin A supplementation for children aged one to five is helping to prevent blindness and disease.

• Families and children are learning about proper hygiene and toilet building through schools, community and government initiatives supported by UNICEF.

• UNICEF supports campaigns to promote handwashing and provides kits to test water for arsenic and microbiological contamination.
Child Protection and Education .

• UNICEF is supporting a plan to eradicate child marriage and human trafficking. Its emphasis and concentration on expansion education opportunities in the state, particularly for poor, tribal and female students, is aimed at this.

(Ranchi based Dr. Sircar is a very uncommon physician whose love for the people has always inspired him to dare even the most inclement and rough terrains in the mission of healthcare. His Face Book friends have immensely benefitted from his postings on related to health and Nature.)

Sabyasachi’s arrest is no arrest of Maoism

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Maoism is a political concept that wants elimination of socio-economic inequality and is considered aggressive voice against exploitation of the voiceless. There is a striking similarity between the Maoists and the State in dealing with the enemies. The State uses weapons sans any qualms to save the land from geographical aggression in the process of which arrest and death may hit any of the soldiers; Maoists use weapons without qualms, as and when necessary, to save the people from economic exploitation in the process of which they dare the jails and death. Therefore, people, who never subscribe to violence, regard the Maoists as political sentinels. So, arrest or elimination of any of them would not lead to arrest of Maoism, exactly as patriotism never declines or dies when a soldier of India gets captured or killed by the enemy on the border.

Therefore, Sabyasachi Panda’s arrest has ignited massive mass attention.

The so-called mainstream media as a whole is busy in projecting his arrest as a great victory for the State, when religious bigots that support societal inequality have started asking the judiciary to exterminate him through capital punishment. The Chief Minister has put his praise for the Police over his arrest on records in the Assembly, and ruling party backbenchers have taken the opportunity to show how active are they, by hurling abusive innuendos at the leader of opposition whose response to the CM’s statement was that, instead of celebrating Sabyasachi’s arrest, the State Government should concentrate on irradiation of poverty, the issue that had given the arrested Maoist leader his mission and strength, though the way of violence that he had allegedly adopted was inappropriate in the eyes of law.

We congratulate the leader of opposition Hon’ble Narasingha Mishra for his wise words that only a conscience keeper of the people could have told the Assembly.

We recall how eminent persons from various streams, known better for their allegiance to Gandhism, such as Smt. Annapurna Maharana (Cuttack), Smt. Sumitra Choudhury (Cuttack), Smt. Krushna Mohanty (Anugul),Sri Rabi Roy (Cuttack), Md. Baji (Nawarangpur), Sri Ratan Das (Gunupur), Sri Bhabani Charan Patnaik (Bhubaneswar), Dr. Bhagaban Prakask (New Delhi) and Prof. Radhamohan (Bhubaneswar), while appealing him in October 2012 to shun violence, had put on records their high appreciation for his exemplary fight to emancipate the wretchedly poor and Dalit people of the State.

By arresting him, the cause he stands for cannot be curbed. Maoism cannot be arrested.

As we have seen, it is the Maoists ,who, by their aggressive stance, make the capitalist governments provide funds for welfare of the poorest of the poor, as seen in allocation of special and dedicated funds for the Maoist dominated districts by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to whom the Maoists were “left viruses”.

Had there been no Sabyasachis, there would never have evolved welfare schemes like the NREGA. Let me quote a 2010 BBC report to show how these schemes are generated by Maoist activism. It had highlighted what an executive of the scheme had said in these words: “NREGA is the only way forward to take on the Maoists. This is nothing about winning hearts and minds. Its only about giving people work before the rebels come in and convince them that they are a better option than the state”.

Against this backdrop, Sabyasachian issue needs impassioned analysis and recognition as a political issue. His crimes, as alleged, deserve to be defined as political crimes.

True, the police have instituted many cases against him. But, Police cases do not make him a criminal.

Police in the eyes of the Supreme Court

According to the Supreme Court of India, vide Judgment delivered on July 2, 2014 in Criminal Appeal No.1277 of 2014, “the Police has not come out of its colonial image despite six decades of independence; it is largely considered as a tool of harassment, oppression and surely not considered a friend of public”.

There was not a single freedom fighter including Gandhiji, whom the Police had not projected as criminals and not prosecuted for violence and sedition. That “colonial image” of police, according to Justice Chandramauli Kr. Prasad and Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose of the Supreme Court of India, as quoted above, “has not” changed “despite six decades of independence”.
The media must take note of this.

And, Media …….

Instead of boasting of mainstream tag, the media should adhere to professional ethics, and media persons, instead of acting mindless orchestrators, should refuse to dance to the tune of the media-owning class in denigrating Sabyasachi and the patriotic public should refuse to be swayed away by the versions of administration, which the compradors mostly control; and leave the issue to impartial wisdom of the Judiciary only. And, the Judiciary should ensure that Sabyasachi is not mistreated by the police when in custody, as many apprehend.

India has already experienced

Rare are the persons who suffer for the cause of the victims of socio-economic exploitation and inequality. And for every society, way to emancipation is not paved only by non-violence, as India has already experienced in her struggle for freedom. Maoism shall not be stymied by arrest of Sabyasachi and suchlike; it can end only when the State ends socio-economiv inequality. Two steps are urgent in this regard. One, elimination of caste-supremacism ; and, two, imposition of ceiling on private wealth with retrospective effect to tally with the land ceiling, Indian farmers have been subjected to.

Death made her Immortal

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Life certainly ends. But, some of us live after death. Society gets from them endless inspiration always.

Smt. Shailabala Pujari is one such person. She has defeated death on her demise and merging with the elements, has become omnipresent.
She was the most lively and brave person I have ever seen, next only to my mother.

She was terminally ill and knew that the time was not distant when the new phase she was to enter would be called death. People are mostly afraid of death. But she was never.

When I had met her in her Bhubaneswar residence, she was in winning smiles, though what others call ‘pain’ was trying to overwhelm her. I was astonished by her composure and personality that was in clear control over the pain.

The last time I saw her was when Additional Solicitor General of India Ms. Indira Jaisingh received felicitations from her hand at Bhubaneswar. She was in the wheel chair and Ms. Jaisingh had come down from the podium to her to receive the same. Except being limited to the wheel chair, she was her usual self of limitless confidence and composure.

Indian wisdom has got expression in the words of Sanatsujat saying “Mrityunastiti” meaning there is no death. Life gets a new form by death, he says.

Shailabala has entered into a new form.

With journalist Deviprasanna Nayak, I had been to Rourkela to pay respects to her new form. And, as we were coming back today, Devi asked, “are the clouds in tears”? I kept mum. He looked at the rain-drenched high way, and resigned to silence again. The car was moving ahead.

Newspaper is not a private matter

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Eminent journalist Prasanta Patnaik, whose column ‘Trutiya Nayana’ had given tremendous credibility and readership to the Oriya daily ‘Pragativadi’, was embarrassed by the owner/operator of the paper to such extent that he has declared not to contribute his column any more to that media organization.

“My column will not appear any more in Pragativadi”, he has notified through social media Facebook.

Pragativadi had begun with begged for financial support from the public. I was the first man to have donated Rs.15/- to the fund for its publication, when its founder Pradyumna Bal had not even been able to print a receipt book for the donations/advance subscription. But his zeal was remarkable, as he was in forefront of agitation against Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s misrule.

That I was the first man to have donated to its funds was witnessed by late revolutionary Manmohan Mishra and my elder brotherly Journalist Ramahari Mishra.

Let me elaborate.

I got a post card from Pradyuman Bal inviting me to a meeting of like-minded friends to be held at Jhanjirimangala in Cuttack to discuss how to develop a media weapon to fight Mrs Gandhi’s misrule. I reached his place at 5 PM on the appointed day. Rabi Das, who, later had become editor of Pragativadi, had escorted me to the inner courtyard of the house, where Manmohan babu was sitting on a cotton ‘Dari (a sort of very coarse carpet) with Pradyumna Bal. After about 15 minutes the 2nd man to attend the meeting – journalist Ramahari Mishra, then with Amrit Bazar Patrika at Cuttack – appeared. Manmohan babu kept us engaged by narrating his experience in jail, from where he had come on parole and with details of how Bhagavat Behera’s wife had sent personal letters to jailers to know of whereabouts of her husband and about his health. No third man had arrived till 7 PM. I had other works to attend. As Pradyumna babu had, in the meantime, told of his intention to bring out Pragativadi as a fortnightly, I had asked him about how much amount of money he proposes for annual subscription and how many people he had invited to the meeting, to which he had replied that he had posted a thousand post cards, and, if 1000 annual subscribers could be enlisted against Rs. 15/- each, publication of the fortnightly would have no constraints. I gave him that amount and begged leave, as we assumed that fear for police might have stymied the invitees, who, on personal contact, may have no hesitation to pay their subscription in advance, the amount being so very small. Then Ramahari babu also gave the amount and came out with me, as staying for more time there could have posed difficulties in getting a rickshaw for Tulasipur, where he was staying.

When Pragativadi was published, Pradyumna babu had never sent me a copy. Aware of the character of politicians in general, I didn’t mind. He, however, remained a friend till his last days.

This unmemorable experience is recalled just to say that, the paper ‘Pragativadi’ owes its origin to donations of unacknowledged paltry sums of money by the public of Orissa.

By embarrassing Prasanta Patnaik as aforesaid, the present owner of the paper has behaved as if the paper was created out of his family’s private property.

The income of a newspaper is the byproduct of contributions of the journalists, because the paper is basically a journalistic venture. It earns subscriptions, because journalists put the information that people want. It earns from advertisements, because the works of the journalists gives it a readership that the advirtisers want to reach. Pragativadi is no exception.

And, if Pragativadi got a readership, Prasanta Patnaik’s contributions thereto is simply unfathomable.

Its acceptability to public was for the first time discernible when its pages had in-depth reports on the plights of rural reporter Naba Kishore Mohapatra on whom the rising mafia had taken revenge for their exposure by perpetrating gang-rape till death on his wife Chhabirani in the days of J. B. Patnaik’s first phase of Chief-Ministership. Prasanta Patnaik had contributed those reports with necessary pictorial in-put.

And, for having, thereby, enhanced the credibility of Pragativadi while exposing JB’s misrule that extinguished Chhabirani, Orissa had witnessed, how eventually Prasanta Patnaik was thrown out of his official residence.

The same newspaper, in hands of the heirs of Pradyumna Bal has misbehaved with the same Prasanta Patnaik, after being established as a major paper with his help, is something, which no nastiness can ever surpass.

What is Prasanta Patnaik?

He is a very simple-natured, uncomplicated, class conscious media person who loves his friends and serves his profession, with tireless readiness to act a sentinel of the people with utmost honesty and magnanimity that he commands. He is an Ajatashatru having no ill-feeling for anybody; yet he is a doyen amongst the scribes of Orissa with uncompromising stance on ethicality of the profession.

He is so pure in mind and heart that he has deemed it his duty to inform his readers that his column shall no more be available in Pragativadi. He has not raised the issue of remunerative compensation, which Pragativadi is legally liable to pay him. He is too magnanimous to raise this issue when the son of his friend holds the reign of the paper. He has decided to stop syndicating to this paper only on the ground of self-respect. In reacting to this, eminent poet and intellectual, Devdas Chhotray has rightly said in Facebook, “Pradyumna Bala must be turning in his grave!”

Dear Samahit Bal, the paper’s editor, I have tried to contact you on this issue; but perhaps time plays the tricks. However, please note, newspaper may be a private property, but not at all a private matter. Therefore, we condemn the way Prasanta babu is embarrassed, and as a friend of your late lamented father, expect that you shall amend yourself.