Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Cuttack, Feb 23:

The Odisha High Court today slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 on senior BJD leader and former minister Rabi Nanda for seeking to delay court proceedings by submitting wrong information in his affidavit.

rabi nandaThe directive of the court came after going through the affidavit filed by Nanda against whom senior Congress leader and sitting MLA of Jeypore Tara Prasad Bahinipati had filed a petition in the court.

The former minister, in his affidavit, had sought more time from the court on the ground that he had been advised by his doctor to take one-month rest since he was suffering from lungs complications.

However, challenging the affidavit, Bahinipati, in his petition, had informed the court that Nanda, during the period, had accompanied the Chief Minister in several programmes and collected the medical report on his lungs complications from a gynaecologist.

Hearing the petition, the court had served a notice to Nanda on February 21 seeking reply as to why criminal proceedings should be not initiated against him on the charge of filing a false affidavit.

It may be mentioned that the High Court had rejected the revision petition filed by Nanda on November 17 last year and had fined him Rs 5,000 for filing the petition after lapse of the stipulated period for filing such petitions.

While review petitions, as per provisions of the existing laws of the land, have to be filed within 45 days of publication of election results, Nanda had filed his petition 60 days after the publication of the results.

The former minister had challenged the result of the Jeypore constituency in which he had lost to Bahinipati in the Assembly elections in May last year.