Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Shri Mohan Charan Majhi has approved the suspension proposals for two senior officials involved in separate cases.
The suspended officials are Shri Arun Kumar Biswal, Additional Secretary of the Commerce and Transport Department, and Shri Sujit Kumar Raul, Senior Superintendent of Cuttack Circle Jail. Both officers were arrested and placed in Judicial Custody.
In accordance with state service rules, any public servant detained in custody for more than 48 hours is subject to suspension. Following their prolonged detention exceeding the specified limit, the Chief Minister formally sanctioned the suspension orders for both officers.
Shri Arun Kumar Biswal served as an Odisha Administrative Service(OAS) officer and held the post of Additional Secretary in the Commerce and Transport Department.
His arrest followed a complaint by a female contractual employee working in the same department. The complaint lodged at the Kharvelnagar Police Station alleged that he forcibly entered her home in an intoxicated state, physically abused her, and made threats using objectionable media.
Cases were subsequently registered against him under multiple severe charges of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including sexual harassment, attempted murder, and criminal intimidation. He has been sent to Judicial Custody.
Shri Sujit Kumar Raul served as the Senior Superintendent at the Choudwar Circle Jail in Cuttack. His legal troubles stemmed from a high-profile security breach where two undertrial prisoners managed to escape by scaling the perimeter wall.
Following the incident, an internal complaint was filed by the jailor alleging that Raul was unauthorizedly absent from duty during the jailbreak. He was accused of fabricating attendance entries, tampering with official registers, and forging signatures to obscure his absence and divert responsibility, which eventually led to his arrest under charges of forgery, official record tampering, and criminal conspiracy. He has been sent to Judicial Custody.