Procedural Error: Orissa HC Quashes Sedition Proceedings Against ‘Maoist Interlocutor’ Dandapani

Cuttack: The Orissa High Court has quashed the order of cognizance issued by the Court of Sub Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM), Berhampur, in the sedition case against ‘outlawed’ Daman Pratirodha Manch convener Dandapani Mohanty.

In 2013, he was arrested from his residence at Shanti Nagar in Berhampur for his alleged involvement in Maoist activities and sedition and waging war against the state and under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

Charges against Dandapani: Blasting of telephone towers, harbouring Maoists, collection of money from people in the name of tax for Maoist organisation and involvement in the murder of a person.

The SDJM court issued the order of cognizance on August 22, 2015, after the submission of a preliminary chargesheet.

On May 6, 2016, Dandapani challenged it in the HC, stating that the cognizance order was issued without the requisite sanction of the government.

The state government, however, contended that the sanction order issued by the department at the post-cognizance stage can be treated as having made good the deficiency and regularised the proceeding.

The Single Judge Bench of Justice S Pujahari, however, ruled that accepting this contention would render the mandatory provisions of law as to sanction “a nugatory”.

In a case registered under UAPA, the sanction of the appropriate government is a precondition for taking cognizance, he added, while quashing the entire proceedings initiated in this case against Dandapani.

Notably, Dandapani was released from the Circle Jail here after remaining in prison for around 34 months in December 2015.

He was the interlocutor when Maoists held the then Malkanagiri Collector R Vineel Krishna hostage between February 17 and 26 in 2011 and again when two Italians, Paulo Bosusco and Claudio Colangelo, were kept in confinement in Kandhamal between March 14 and April 12, 2012.

Dandapani had then accused the government of “not fulfilling promises made during negotiations and arresting and killing innocent people branding them as Maoists”.