HC grants anticipatory bail to Union minister's brother

Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan's elder brother Soumendra Pradhan, facing arrest for various alleged irregularities involving his gas agency was given anticipatory bail by the Orissa High Court today.
A vacation bench of Justice Debabrata Dash granted pre- arrest bail to Soumendra, turning his interim anticipatory bail given on January 24, 2017 into a regular one and asked the accused to join investigation by the state's Vigilance Police into the alleged irregularities involving his agency.
Soumendra, who owns a cooking gas agency at Talcher in Angul district, was booked by the vigilance wing of Odisha Police in January this year for alleged irregularities.

He and three employees of his agency were accused of committing various offences under the IPC, the Essential Commodities Act and India Explosive Act.
The vigilance sleuths had detected shortage of 40 filled gas cylinders in Soumendra's agency. The missing cylinders, issued in the names of different consumers, were allegedly sold to a nearby godown owner without any valid documents.
The filled cylinders were later recovered from a nearby godown.