Cuttack: The Orissa High Court issued a notice Tuesday to the state government asking for its response in connection with a petition related to the missing of keys of Shree Jagannath Temple’s Ratna Bhandar in Puri. The Orissa High Court was hearing a petition filed by Puri-based social worker Dilip Baral. He has has sought directive of the court to make the report of Justice Raghubir Das Commission public. The high court has directed Chief Secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena and the Law Department Secretary to submit response in this regard.
Though the Justice Raghubir Das Commission had submitted its report in 2018, it has not been tabled in the Assembly so far. The report is yet to be made public and it is the responsibility of the state government to table the report in Assembly,” said lawyer Anup Kumar Mohapatra.
“The disappearance of the Ratna Bhandar keys created a lot of confusion. Five years have gone by and yet there has been no development. We have also prayed to the court to allow ASI to carry out Ratna Bhandar repair work,” Mohapatra added.
The state government had in 2018 formed the commission led by Justice Raghubir Das, a retired judge of the Orissa High Court, to probe the missing of the keys. The panel had submitted a 324-page report to the state Home Department. However, since then nothing much has happened to find out where the keys are and how did they go missing.
In April 2018, the then district collector of Puri, who is the official administrator of the keys, stated that those had gone missing and are nowhere to be found. Despite the passage of five years, the keys still remain untraceable.