Overview
- The state chief minister referred the case to the Odisha CID Crime Branch on Monday after the Bhubaneswar-Cuttack police had been investigating the disappearance of the Justice A.S. Naidu Commission report on the 2008 Kandhamal violence.
- An FIR was filed on June 10 by Sarat Chandra Marandi of the Home Department after officials found the Naidu report and a separate 2016 RDC inquiry into the Sum Hospital fire missing from Chief Minister’s Office records.
- Police have recorded statements from about 15 former CMO officials and only one senior officer, former IT secretary Manoj Mishra, has appeared so far to give testimony.
- Three former senior IAS officers — V K Pandian, U N Behera and Rajesh Verma — were summoned but did not comply with police appearances, prompting the chief minister to move the matter to the CID for a more formal probe.
- Investigators will try to reconstruct the custodial chain for the two reports and determine whether records were unlawfully removed or concealed, a step that could drive further legal action and intensify public and political scrutiny over transparency in the state.