Cuttack:
The Orissa High Court on Monday granted bail to suspended IFS officer Abhay Kant Pathak and his son on a bond of Rs 2 lakh and two sureties in a cheating case.
The father and son were booked by the police for allegedly defrauding a Bhubaneswar-based travel agency of Rs 65 lakh.
Justice Sangam Kumar Sahoo allowed the bail applications of the Pathaks who are in jail custody.
“The court was convinced that police cannot be a recovery agent of a private travel organisation and initiate criminal proceedings”, their counsel senior advocate Pitambar Acharya said.
The travel agency had lodged a complaint at Kharavela Nagar police station on December 2 last year accusing Akash Pathak of defrauding the agency to the tune of Rs 65 lakh.
As per reports, Akash and his father had booked chartered flights, five star hotels and air tickets through the agency totalling around Rs 2.78 crore. They had paid Rs 2.13 crore while outstanding bill of Rs 65,16,233 was not cleared, the agency had alleged.
The father and son had also been booked in various other cases by different wings of the state police.
The suspended Indian Forest Service officer was earlier granted bail by a special vigilance court in a vigilance case registered against him.
The duo was on November 27 last year arrested by the Odisha Vigilance on charges of amassing properties disproportionate to their known sources of income.
