By Our Correspondent in Bhubaneswar, February 23, 2015 :

In what appears to be a severe indictment on the ruling Biju Janta Dal leader and former minister, Rabi Narayan Nanda, Odisha High court on Monday slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 for misleading the Court with wrong information in the affidavit about his health condition.

The former minister had sought to delay court proceedings by submitting wrong information in his affidavit on the ground that he had been advised by his doctor to take one-month rest since he was suffering from lungs complications.

The HC directive follows the affidavit filed by Mr Nanda against whom senior Congress leader and sitting MLA of Jeypore Tara Prasad Bahinipati had filed a petition in the court stating that the BJD leader had no health problem.

Mr Bahinipati, in his petition, had informed the court that Mr Nanda, during the period, had accompanied the chief minister in several programmes and collected the medical report on his lungs complications from a gynecologist.

The medical report, according to Mr Bahinipati, showed no problem with the BJD’s lungs.

Hearing the petition, the court had served a notice to Mr Nanda on February 21 seeking reply as to why criminal proceedings should be not initiated against him on the charge of filing a false affidavit.

The HC had rejected the revision petition filed by Nanda on November 17 last year and had fined him Rs 5,000 for filing the petition after lapse of the stipulated period for filing such petitions.

While review petitions, as per provisions of the existing laws of the land, have to be filed within 45 days of publication of election results, Mr Nanda had filed his petition 60 days after the publication of the results.

The BJD leader had challenged the 2014 results of the Jeypore assembly constituency polls in which he had lost to Mr Bahinipati.