India, July 9 -- Four years after a forest officer of Odisha died of burns under mysterious circumstances, the Orissa high court on Wednesday dismissed petitions by his wife and a divisional forest officer (DFO) against a lower court direction to treat them as the murder accused.

The high court rejected petitions by Bidyabharati Panda, wife of the deceased assistant conservator of forest Soumya Ranjan Mohapatra and former Paralakhemundi divisional forest officer Sangram Behera, who challenged the April 2023 order of a sub-divisional judicial magistrate to investigate and try the two for murder.

Soumya Ranjan Mohapatra, a 2020-batch Odisha Forest Service officer in the Paralakhemundi area of Gajapati district, sustained 80% burns at home...