Raising a highly sensitive unprecedented issue, senior advocate Pitambar Acharya said a contempt of court petition has been filed against Odisha Lokayukta chairperson Justice Ajit Kumar Singh (retd) and M R Tripathy, secretary Odisha Lokayukta for having submitted ‘ a non-existent’ order of the Orissa High Court while moving a special leave petition in the Supreme Court.

Addressing media persons and circulating the contempt petition, Acharya alleged such a step smacks not only of impropriety but also of ‘fraud and manufacturing a court order for which stern action as per law needs to be taken’.

Narrating the sequence of events he said CM Naveen Patnaik had on 7 December 2020 announced that he had referred a case against MLA Pradip Panigrahi to the Lokayukta. There is no scope under the Act for any such reference.

On 9 December a DSP of the vigilance department filed a complaint petition before the Lokayukta against Panigrahi and on 11 December the Lokayukta issued orders to the director vigilance to investigate.

This order was challenged in the High Court on grounds that the complainant and an investigator cannot be the same (vigilance).

The HC upheld the contention of Acharya who was appearing for Panigrahi and quashed the order of the Lokayukta while stating that the investigation can be done by the own agency of the Lokayukta.

The Lokayukta preferred to file a review petition in the HC which was again dismissed. Against this, the Lokayukta filed an SLP in the Supreme Court which gave an interim stay.

Acharya alleged that the order of the HC was a two-page one while the one furnished with the SLP is a six-page one.

“The six-page purported order of the HC is non-existent” alleged Acharya and we have filed a contempt petition, he said.

It is however reliably learned that soon after Acharya’s charges, the Lokayukta on Wednesday has written to the registrar of the HC to enquire and find out how the order which it had downloaded from the website is no longer available on the site.

Sources said the six-page HC order which the Lokayukta had furnished with its SLP in the apex court had been downloaded from the website and both the two-page order as well as the six-page detailed order had been submitted with the SLP.