Elderly man, on run after forging HC order, arrested

Bhubaneswar: A 66-year-old man, who had been absconding for eight years after allegedly producing a fake Orissa high court order in 2018 to protect his daughter in a bank fraud case, was arrested by the state crime branch on Thursday.

The accused, Prasanna Kumar Patro, formerly a malkhana clerk at a court in Koraput district, was booked following a complaint lodged by the high court on March 22, 2018.

According to the police, Patro, along with his wife and two daughters, was booked in a bank loan fraud in Koraput in 2018. One of his daughters, employed at a nationalised bank in Koraput, had allegedly embezzled Rs 2 crore between Oct 2016 and Nov 2017. The case was later transferred to the economic offences wing in June 2018.

“To protect his daughter, Patro fabricated a fake high court order directing the Jeypore civil court to share land-related information. When the high court discovered the forgery, it lodged a formal complaint,” a crime branch official said.

“He conspired with his daughter to forge the order for wrongful gain and to shield her from prosecution in the bank fraud case,” the crime branch officer said.

Officials further revealed that Patro is a habitual offender. He had previously been booked for criminal breach of trust, forgery and misappropriation of govt funds during his tenure as clerk at a court malkhana in Koraput. “He was convicted in 1993 and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in a case of criminal breach of trust. He is also accused of forging court orders in past cases to evade legal action,” the officer said.



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