The Commissionerate Police on Wednesday issued a summons to V K Pandian, former bureaucrat and close confidant of Naveen Patnaik, former chief minister and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president, in connection with the disappearance of two sensitive inquiry reports from the Odisha Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) in 2024.
The police asked him to appear before the investigating officer at the office of the additional commissioner of police (ACP), Zone-I, Bhubaneswar, at 11 am on July 25. The Capital Police registered a case following an FIR on the missing files on June 10.
“During the course of investigation, police found that Pandian may be acquainted with the facts and circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the files and therefore required his presence for examination,” the summons, signed by investigating officer B B Hota, said.
The notice also instructed him to bring any documents, records, electronic devices or other materials relevant to the investigation that may be in his possession or control.
A 2000-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, Pandian served for 12 years as private secretary to Patnaik and emerged as one of the most influential figures in the previous BJD government. He took voluntary retirement before joining the BJD ahead of the 2024 Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. He, however, announced his exit from active politics following the party’s defeat in the elections.
The latest summons came as police continued questioning officials associated with the functioning of the CMO during the previous government. Earlier, the Commissionerate Police had summoned IAS officer Rajesh Verma, who served as principal secretary to the chief minister between 2017 and 2019, and former IT secretary Manoj Mishra.
While Mishra appeared before investigators on July 18 after seeking an earlier date because of prior commitments, Verma, who is currently serving as chairperson of the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) in New Delhi, failed to appear on Wednesday despite being summoned.
Police sources said a second notice would be issued to Verma, providing him another opportunity to cooperate with the investigation. If he continued to ignore the summons without valid reasons, legal proceedings, including seeking the issuance of a non-bailable warrant (NBW), could be initiated against him.
After his questioning, Mishra said he had fully cooperated with the investigation.
“Since an FIR has been filed alleging that two files are missing, police are asking officials concerned about the procedures followed for maintaining them. I have shared all the information they sought. As the matter is under investigation, it would not be appropriate to elaborate further,” he told mediapersons.
According to the FIR, several files had been forwarded to the CMO by the Home Department over the years. While most of these records were returned to the department on June 4, 2024, after the change in government, two crucial reports remained untraceable.
These include the Justice A S Naidu Commission report on the 2008 Kandhamal riots following the assassination of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, and the Revenue Divisional Commissioner’s inquiry report into the 2016 fire tragedy at a private hospital in Bhubaneswar. The Kandhamal report reached the CMO in September 2016, while the fire tragedy inquiry report was submitted in May 2018.
The FIR lodged by Sarat Chandra Marandi, a joint secretary in the Home Department, states that the disappearance of these reports raises “reasonable suspicion” that they may have been intentionally removed, retained, concealed, destroyed or otherwise unlawfully dealt with.
The missing files controversy has triggered a major political row in Odisha, particularly because neither report has been made public despite being submitted to the government years ago.
