The Katni district administration has asked Madhya Pradesh’s chief secretary to issue lookout notices against suspended CSP Neha Pachisia and two other accused who have not been arrested in a case involving alleged misuse of official position and a benami land deal.
Additional collector Nilambar Mishra made the request in a letter to the chief secretary, attaching an application submitted to the President’s Office by advocate Avnish Tiwari on behalf of the complainant. The application seeks lookout notices against Pachisia and the two other accused. The President’s Office had forwarded the application by email for necessary action, according to the letter cited in the report.
An FIR was registered against the three accused at Kuthela police station 65 days before the report, and a special investigation team was constituted to examine the allegations. Pachisia, however, had not been arrested at the time of publication. Police have announced a reward of Rs 10,000 each for information leading to the arrest of the three accused.
The case follows an internal inquiry into allegations linked to Pachisia’s conduct while she was serving in office. According to the report, she was accused of failing to ensure that a charge sheet was filed within the stipulated period in a murder case registered at Kuthela police station. The allegation is that this enabled the accused in that case to obtain default bail.
The second set of allegations concerns the purchase of land belonging to the family of the murder-case accused. Pachisia is accused of using her official position to facilitate the transaction through an agent and of helping secure the land at a substantially lower price. The reported case has been registered under various provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita following the internal inquiry.
Pachisia was suspended after a departmental inquiry, according to the report. The district administration’s request for lookout notices adds an administrative step to the ongoing criminal investigation, while the proposed notices would seek to assist efforts to trace the accused if they are suspected of leaving or attempting to leave the country.
The complainant has also approached the high court seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the matter. The report does not state whether the high court has ordered such an investigation or whether the request for a CBI probe has been accepted.
The next developments in the case will depend on action by the chief secretary’s office on the lookout-notice request, the investigation by the special investigation team and the court proceedings concerning the plea for a CBI inquiry.
