A court in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday dismissed a petition against former Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik and his close aide VK Pandian over alleged misuse of government helicopters and loss of ₹ 500 crore to the state exchequer, ruling that the petitioner had failed to establish a prima facie offence, comply with mandatory legal procedures for seeking registration of a first information report (FIR), produce documentary or Right to Information (RTI) evidence supporting the allegations, or demonstrate the required locus standi to bring the complaint.
The court found that the petitioner had failed to produce documentary evidence or the RTI material allegedly collected by his witnesses to substantiate the allegations or establish the involvement of the two respondents. The complaint was filed by advocate and social worker Sudhir Charan Mohanty, who alleged that Patnaik and Pandian had spent around ₹ 500 crore on helicopter travel and meetings. The judge, in dismissing the revision, said, “Thus, in view of the aforesaid discussion, this Court is of the considered opinion that the complaint/petitioner neither made out any case under any of the penal sections referred to in the complaint petition with supported materials nor adhered to the mandatory compliance of Section 173(4) of BNSS, 2023 before presenting the complaint nor he had got any locus-standi to present the complaint in terms of Section 33 of BNSS, 2023. The allegations relate in part to Pandian’s extensive helicopter travel during 2023, when he was serving as Patnaik’s secretary for the state’s 5T (Teamwork, Transparency, Technology, Time, and Transformation) initiative. Pandian travelled by helicopter to 190 locations across all 30 districts as part of a programme aimed at taking the chief minister’s grievance cell to the people.
Mohanty said he had relied on information obtained through the Right to Information. The allegations, it said, were omnibus and unsupported by substantive material.
Pandian had said the exercise generated 57,442 petitions, of which 43,536 were resolved. The state government was reported to have spent about ₹ 6 crore to ₹ 9 crore on helicopters alone, while opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleged that the overall expenditure on the meetings and related arrangements amounted to at least ₹ 500 crore. The Patnaik-led state government did not release figures for the expenditure incurred on the meetings held at the 190 locations.
