A court in Odisha has issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against senior IAS officer Manish Agarwal in connection with the mysterious death of his Personal Assistant (PA) during his tenure as Malkangiri Collector in 2019.
The Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM) court in Malkangiri also issued NBWs against three others involved in the case.
The warrant was issued for Agarwal, who is currently serving as the Additional Secretary in the Planning and Convergence Department of the state, after he failed to appear in court despite several notices.
When Agarwal was the Malkangiri Collector, his PA, Deba Narayan Panda, went missing from the office on December 27, 2019. The following day, Panda’s body was recovered from the Satiguda dam in the district. Initially, the police registered the case as a suicide but later classified it as an unnatural death.
However, Panda’s wife accused the former collector of murder. Subsequently, Agarwal and three of his staff members were charged under sections 302 (murder), 506 (intimidation), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), and 204 (destruction of documents or electronic records) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Following the registration of the case, the state government transferred Agarwal to the role of deputy secretary in the Planning and Convergence Department.
