Bhubaneswar: A 66-year-old former malkhana clerk from a court in Koraput district, who had been evading arrest for eight years, was apprehended by the Odisha Crime Branch (CID) on Thursday for allegedly forging an Orissa High Court order in 2018.
The accused, Prasanna Kumar Patro, was booked following a formal complaint lodged by the Orissa High Court on March 22, 2018, after the forgery was detected.
Police said Patro, along with his wife and two daughters, faced charges in a major bank fraud registered in Koraput in 2018. His daughter, who worked at a nationalised bank in the district, allegedly embezzled around Rs 2 crore between October 2016 and November 2017. The case was later handed over to the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch in June 2018.
To protect his daughter, Patro allegedly fabricated a High Court directive, ordering the Jeypore civil court to furnish specific land-related information. When the forgery came to light, the High Court promptly filed a complaint. “He conspired with his daughter to forge the order for wrongful gain and to shield her from prosecution in the bank fraud case,” a senior Crime Branch officer was quoted as saying.
Patro has been described as a habitual offender with a history of similar crimes during his tenure as a malkhana clerk. He was previously convicted in 1993 and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for criminal breach of trust. He also faces accusations of forging court orders in other cases, as well as charges related to misappropriation of government funds, forgery, and criminal breach of trust.
