New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted interim bail to senior IAS officer Manish Agarwal in connection with a five-year-old abetment of suicide case involving his personal assistant during his tenure as Malkangiri district collector in Odisha.
Mr Agarwal, currently serving as Additional Secretary in the Planning and Convergence Department of the Odisha government, had approached the apex court after the Orissa High Court rejected his anticipatory bail petition on April 25.
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SC Issues Notice, Interim Bail Granted
A division bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and Dipankar Datta granted relief after a preliminary hearing, issuing a notice returnable by July 22.
“Meanwhile, the petitioner may surrender before the trial court and furnish bail bonds to its satisfaction upon which he shall be released on interim bail,” the bench directed.
Mr Agarwal had sought interim protection, fearing arrest if he appeared before the Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM) court in Malkangiri, which had earlier rejected his plea for exemption from appearance.
High Court Had Denied Bail
The Orissa High Court, in rejecting Agarwal’s anticipatory bail, had observed that there was no merit in granting such an “exceptional remedy”, citing the Supreme Court’s own words:
“Just as liberty is precious for an individual, so is the interest of the society in maintaining law and order.”
The Case Background
Agarwal’s personal assistant Deba Narayan Panda went missing on December 27, 2019, and his body was recovered the next day from the Satiguda Dam. Initially treated as a case of suicide, the matter escalated when Panda’s wife accused the then-collector of murder.
The police first registered the case under Sections 302 (murder), 506 (criminal intimidation), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), and 204 (destruction of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The SDJM court took cognisance of these charges.
However, in a major relief to Agarwal, the Orissa High Court on June 26, 2023, ruled that there was no prima facie evidence to sustain the murder charges and directed the trial court to proceed under Section 306 (abetment of suicide) instead.
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Supreme Court Earlier Refused to Intervene
Agarwal later challenged the High Court’s direction in the Supreme Court, but the apex court in November 2024 declined to interfere with the HC’s ruling.
The High Court had also asked the trial court to expedite the proceedings, preferably within eight months.
