Bhubaneswar: The sessions court in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday upheld the dismissal of a complaint alleging misappropriation of over Rs 500 crore by former chief minister Naveen Patnaik and former bureaucrat V K Pandian in unaccounted helicopter travel, holding that the accusations were not supported by prima facie evidence and that mandatory procedural requirements under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) had not been complied with.The criminal revision petition was filed by advocate and social activist Sudhir Charan Mohanty, challenging a March 25, 2026 order of the SDJM, Bhubaneswar, which had dismissed his complaint against the two. In his complaint, Mohanty alleged that public funds and unaccounted money were used to finance extensive helicopter tours, public meetings and related activities during the previous BJD regime.He claimed that nearly 300 helicopter trips were undertaken across Odisha before 2024 elections without govt sanction and that the expenditure was allegedly borne by mine owners, contractors, realtors and other sources. The complaint also alleged misappropriation of public funds, conversion of black money into white money and acceptance of illegal gratification.However, sessions judge Biranchi Narayan Mohanty observed that the complainant had failed to place any substantive material on record to support these allegations. While the petitioner claimed that information obtained through RTI by his witnesses pointed to financial irregularities, the court noted that not a single document or supporting evidence had been produced before the magistrate to establish the alleged offences.The court further held that the complainant had not complied with Section 173(4) of the BNSS, which requires an aggrieved person to send the substance of information by post to the superintendent of police if a police station refuses to register an FIR before approaching a magistrate. It found that the communication submitted to the DCP was cryptic, did not contain the substance of the original FIR and was not sent by post as mandated by law.“The complainant/petitioner did not file a single scrap of paper or information, which he had collected from his witnesses to prima facie assess the commission of any cognizable offence,” the court observed.The court also observed that the complainant lacked locus standi to pursue the complaint in the manner sought. Consequently, it dismissed the revision petition and upheld the SDJM’s order rejecting the complaint.