By Matters India Reporter

New Delhi, Jan 31, 2020: Father Anand Muttungal, former spokesperson of the Catholic Church in Madhya Pradesh, has been released from judicial custody after 50 days.

Father Muttungal was released on January 30 from a jail in Bhopal, capital of the central Indian state.

Friends and well wishers of the priest reached the Bhopal prison to receive the priest of the archdiocese of Bhopal.

Father Muttungal was arrested on December 11 from his residence by the officials of Economic Offence Wing (EOW), a special branch of the state police dealing with economic offences.

He was later produced before a special court that remanded him to 15-day judicial custody. The priest later tried to obtain bail from the same court without success.

Subsequently, he moved the principal bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur which granted him bail on January 28.

Father Muttungal was, however, released from the jail two days later after he furnished furnishing a bond of 50,000 rupees.

Richard James, a spokesperson for Father Muttungal, confirmed to Matters India, about the priest’s release.

Father Muttungal faces charges such as cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, and forging documents, an police official told Matters India on condition of anonymity.

The case, the official said, was registered against the against the 47-year-old priest October 17 at EOW police station in Bhopal after almost two-years preliminary investigation.

“The priest is the first among eight people named as accused in the case,” the official added.

The forgery case was registered on the basis of a complaint lodged in April 2017 by a group of people led by one G G John against Father Muttungal and others.

The complainants accused a real estate firm – St. Jude Colonizers – of duping money from 377 people after promising them residential plots on the outskirts of Bhopal.

John Cherian is the president of the firm registered in 2009 while Richard D’Silva, Vipin Toppo, Roy John Thatta, Jerry Paul and Saji Thomas are its members. Only Toppo and Thatta are accused in the case.

However, Father Muttungal is not a member of the society, although he is named the main accused in the forgery case.

The police’s preliminary findings say the priest, as the archdiocesan PRO, had allegedly conspired with Toppo and Thatta, one of his employees, to dupe the home buyers.