Bhubaneswar: Retired Orissa High Court judge Justice A S Naidu on Thursday voiced concern over the alleged mysterious disappearance of his commission’s comprehensive report on the 2008 murder of VHP leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and subsequent ethno-communal riots in Kandhamal.
“The full-fledged report, spanned across two thick volumes of over 2000 pages, contained sensitive findings. It was processed by the Home Secretary and handed over directly to the Chief Minister’s Office. I suspect it has been misplaced,” he said, rubbishing reports about the file being stolen from the CMO.
Justice Sarat Chandra Mohapatra was appointed as the one man commission to probe Saraswati’s killing and the subsequent riots in which at least 38 people were killed. However, Justice Mahpatra passed away in 2012 before completing the inquiry. Then the state government appointed Justice A S Naidu to head the one-man probe panel in 2012. The Commission submitted its report to the state government in December 2015.
When questioned about the factors behind the 2008 violence, Justice Naidu clarified that while religious conversions played a notable role, it was not the sole trigger. “Religious conversion was a prominent reason behind the building tensions, but it was not the only cause. The report details multiple underlying factors, including deep-rooted socio-economic issues, geographical isolation of the Kandha tribal community, and disputes surrounding the improper issuance of Schedule Caste certificates,” he told a local news channel.
Reflecting on the riots that displaced thousands and led to widespread destruction, Justice Naidu noted that the report highlights systemic failure rather than individuals. “A Commission’s job is not to pass a criminal judgment on individuals but to assess why a disaster happened and how to avoid it in the future. However, our report did highlight administrative negligence, allowing the situation to spiral out of control,” he said.
Addressing the initial police claims that Left-Wing Extremists (Maoists) were behind the murder of Swami Laxmanananda, Justice Naidu confirmed the commission evaluated this aspect. “We thoroughly evaluated the alleged role of Maoists and their leader Sabyasachi Panda in orchestrating the attack. These findings were detailed in our final submission. Because it was a highly confidential and sensitive report, the exact conclusions were meant to be placed before the Cabinet,” he said, adding that after 15 years, specific names had faded from memory but remained documented in the missing files.
Justice Naidu emphasised that the report specified 15 to 16-point guidelines to prevent similar communal disharmony in the future. “As far as my opinion is concerned, or as far as my conception of law is concerned, once a report is submitted, it has to be acted upon by the department concerned, and it has to be placed before the Cabinet as well as before the Assembly thereafter. The results should then be published or made known to the common people. But here is an exception that we are now facing. A report was submitted after much endurance and effort. We worked tirelessly on it,” he later told IANS.
This came a day after joint secretary of Home department Sarat Chandra Marandi filed a complaint with the Capital Police Station here, alleging that the reports of the Justice AS Naidu Commission on the 2008 Kandhamal riots and the Revenue Divisional Commissioner (RDC) inquiry into a private hospital fire tragedy are missing from government custody.
Police have registered a case under sections 305 (theft), 316(2) (criminal breach of trust), 238(c) (causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offender), 241 (destruction of document or electronic record to prevent its production as evidence) and 61(2)(b) (criminal conspiracy) of the BNS.
