For the editor’s bail, Orissa High Court sets a Rs. 1 lakh bond and Rs. 10 lakh cash security

Surjit Kumar Dhal, the main editor of the Odia newspaper “Mahabharat” and the online news site “Reporter Today,” was detained on suspicion of defrauding a real estate tycoon of Rs. 1 crore. On Thursday, the Orissa High Court granted Dhal bail.

Dhal has been detained since this year’s January 6. On January 12, the court assigned under the Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (OPID) Act, Cuttack, denied his request for bail.

Nonetheless, Dhal was released on bail by the one-judge panel of Justice Aditya Kumar Mohapatra if he provided a bail bond of Rs. 1 lakh and two local solvent sureties, each for the same amount, to the satisfaction of the trial court.

The petitioner, Surjit Kumar Dhal, is further directed by Justice Mohapatra to provide a cash security of Rs 10 lakh before the trial court regarding the matter. This cash security is to be kept in an interest-bearing account in any nationalised bank for a period of one year at the beginning, renewable periodically until the trial concludes, and it will be abided by the case’s final outcome.

“The broad allegation as has been understood by this court from a careful reading of the record is that the informant had paid a sum of Rs 1 crore to the petitioner, out of which a sum of Rs 10 lakhs was transferred to the petitioner’s account and the balance Rs 90 lakhs was paid in cash,” Justice Mohapatra said in the order granting bail. The petitioner uses his connections and closeness to high-ranking government officials to get clearances and approvals from government agencies and authorities. This is one of the purposes of the payment of the sum.

According to Justice Mohapatra, the court is refraining from commenting on the case’s facts at this time as doing so would probably influence the trial court’s decision to proceed.

However, he continued, “this court is inclined to release the petitioner on bail subject to certain stringent conditions, taking into consideration the surrounding facts and circumstances, the gravity of the allegation made in the FIR, the period of custodial detention as well as the fact that the petitioner does not have any criminal antecedent.”