Orissa High Court Suspends Life Sentence of Ex-MLA Narayan Reddy, 2 Others in Inspector Murder Case

Cuttack: The Orissa High Court suspended the life sentence of former Chhatrapur MLA N Narayan Reddy for his alleged involvement in the death of a police inspector Inspector Binoba Meher of the reserve police on June 18, 1998.

The inspector died of injuries when an unidentified person hurled a bomb at Sindhigaon in Ganjam district while he was on duty. Meher was monitoring law and order situation resulting from demonstrations against land acquisition for a proposed steel plant of Tata Steel.

Under section 302 of the IPC, at least 22 persons—including CPI leader Reddy—were listed as defendants and charged with murder.

On July 31, 2023, the court of additional district judge-cum-special judge for MPs and MLAs had sentenced Reddy and 12 others to life imprisonment for the death of inspector Meher.

Reddy and two other convicts in the case filed criminal appeal in the high court challenging their conviction. They also sought suspension of execution of the sentence imposed on them.

The division bench of Justice Debabrata Dash and Justice V Narasingh suspended the execution of the life sentence ‘taking into account the submissions, the impugned judgment and the happening in the incident including the role of the appellants as those emanate from the evidence and also the surrounding circumstances’.

November 5 was set as the next date for the appeal hearing by the bench, which also ordered that “further execution of the sentence imposed upon the appellants (Reddy and two others) by the trial court shall remain suspended pending disposal of the appeal.”

In addition to providing the relief, the bench ordered Reddy and the other two appellants to be released on bail.