Orissa HC Quashes Murder Charge Against Former Malkangiri Collector In PA’s Death Case

Cuttack: In a big relief for IAS officer Manish Agrawal, the Orissa High Court quashed the murder charge levelled against him in connection with the mysterious death of his personal assistant (PA) during his tenure as Malkangiri Collector in 2019.

The Single Judge Bench of Justice Sashikanta Mishra, however, sustained the charge of abetment of suicide and criminal conspiracy against Agrawal and other accused persons. “The foregoing narration relating to the events leading to commission of suicide by the deceased would prima facie, show that all the three accused persons had acted in unison to belittle the deceased in several ways and on multiple occasions which caused him to be mentally upset.”

The case will now be probed under Sections 306/120-B/34 IPC (abetment of suicide) instead of 302/506/201/204 of IPC (murder).

The court also asked for expeditious disposal of the case, within eight months.

As per the case record, Deba Narayan Panda, who was working as PA to Manish Agrawal, , the then Malkangiri Collector, went missing from his office on December 27, 2019. His body was recovered from Satiguda dam in Malkangiri the following day.

The postmortem report attributed his death to drowning and its complications. The body did not have any injury or mark of violence. The viscera report indicated that no poisonous compound, alcohol and drugs could be detected.

A year later, on November 30, 2020, the wife of the deceased alleged that he went to the residence of the Collector at about 10 am and never returned thereafter. Suspecting foul play, she filed a case in this regard at the court of Malkangiri Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM), which directed for registration of a murder case against Agarwal and three others. The Odisha Police had also launched a CID-Crime Branch probe into the incident.

Challenging the Malkangiri SDJM court’s order, Agarwal had moved the Orissa HC.