Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi has instructed the Crime Branch of Odisha Police to investigate the disappearance of the Justice A.S. Naidu Commission report on the murder of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and others from the Chief Minister’s Office during the previous Biju Janata Dal regime. This decision follows an ongoing inquiry by the Commissionerate Police into the missing report and the RDC inquiry report on the SUM Hospital fire incident in 2016.
A case was registered by the Capital Police Station in Bhubaneswar based on a complaint from a senior official of the Home Department, under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita on June 10, 2026. Former bureaucrats, including V.K. Pandian, a close aide of BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik, were summoned by the Commissionerate Police for questioning regarding the missing reports.
The Crime Branch has begun the process of registering a new case to investigate the disappearance of the Justice Naidu Commission report following the Chief Minister’s directive. Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his followers were killed in an armed attack in 2008, leading to communal unrest in Kandhamal. The judicial commission appointed by the state government to investigate the incidents had submitted its report in December 2015, which has not been made public by the government.
