3 min readBhubaneswarJul 16, 2026 10:02 PM IST
The Odisha Police have summoned two former senior bureaucrats who served in the chief minister’s office (CMO) under the previous Biju Janata Dal government as part of an investigation into the alleged disappearance of two inquiry commission reports.
Summons have been issued to retired IAS officer Rajesh Verma and former Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS) officer Manoj Mishra as part of the investigation into the alleged disappearance of two reports — one pertaining to the killing of Hindu seer Laxmananda Saraswati in Kandhamal in 2008, and the other on the fire at SUM medical college in 2016.
The two retired bureaucrats have been asked to appear on July 22. They did not respond to calls and texts for a comment.
“You are requested to bring with you any documents, records, electronic devices or any other material relevant to the investigation that may be in your possession or control,” the notice issued to Verma Wednesday said.
Verma served as principal secretary to former chief minister Naveen Patnaik between 2017 and 2019 and served as secretary to President Droupadi Murmu after joining the central deputation in 2022. Mishra served as secretary of the Electronics and IT Department and as officer on special duty (OSD) in the CMO during the BJD rule.
Mishra resigned after the change of government in June 2024.
Police sources said that since the two retired officials appear to be acquainted “with the facts and circumstances of the case”, they were asked to appear for examination and extend cooperation.
This comes after a police complaint from the joint secretary of the home department on June 10 alleged that the two judicial commission reports are not available in the CMO and remain untraceable despite searches.
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The complainant alleged that while several other reports and files forwarded by the home department to the CMO were returned on June 4, 2024 — when the Assembly election results became clear — these two are still missing.
The FIR claimed that the “disappearance” of the reports created a reasonable suspicion that they may have been “intentionally removed, retained, concealed, destroyed or otherwise unlawfully dealt with”.
The Kandhamal report probed the killing of Hindu seer and Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Laxmananda Saraswati and his four disciples, which led to communal clashes that killed 39 people. The clashes strained the BJD-BJP alliance, with the two parties severing ties ahead of the 2009 Assembly and general elections.
In October 2013, a sessions court in Kandhamal sentenced eight people, including Maoist leader P Rama Rao alias Uday, to life imprisonment.
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Speaking to The Indian Express recently, Justice (retd) A S Naidu, who headed the one-member commission, said the two-volume report, running over 1,500 pages, was submitted to the Odisha government in December 2016. The commission examined around 300 witnesses and received 825 affidavits during the course of its inquiry.
The former judge also said that the report referred to religious conversions among tribal and Scheduled Caste communities as one of the factors behind social tensions in Kandhamal, and also dealt with Maoist activities, social stigma, socio-economic issues, and the geographical isolation of tribal communities.
Similarly, the inquiry report by the revenue divisional commissioner (RDC) into the SUM hospital fire, in which 22 people were killed in October 2016, was sent to the CMO in May 2018. The incident led the then health minister, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, to resign.