The Bihar government yesterday assured the Patna High Court that it would be able to maintain law and order in the event of arrest of top political executives in connection with fodder scam. Now the ball is now in the CBIs court to take prompt action to arrest the Chief Minister and other accused against whom the chargesheet has been filed by the investigating agency in case No RC 20A/96.
The investigating agency had submitted before the monitoring bench of the Patna High Court on July 7 that the CBI would not delay the arrest even for a minute if the state government gave an undertaking that no harm was done to its officials and the law and order would be maintained at all cost. It had submitted a three-point questionnaire to the bench comprising Justices S N Jha and S J Mukhopadhya asking whether the state government apprehended widespread and serious law and order problems in the event of arrest of top political executives holding high status by the CBI, will it be able to maintain law and order and ensure that no harm is done to CBI personnel and their property. The court had asked the state government to reply by yesterday.
Deputy secretary of police B K Sinha in an affidavit filed on behalf of chief secretary B P Verma told the court that accurate forecasting of future law and order problems was very difficult. He, however, admitted that the state government did apprehend widespread and serious law and order problem in the event of arrest of top political executives. Such possibilities do exist.
Referring to the second question of the CBI, Sinha in his affidavit said the state government is aware of its responsibilities and adequate precautionary measures have already been taken for the maintenance of the law and other in the state. The state government is continuously monitoring the law and order situation and it will take necessary measures to deal with the situation effectively.
He also said that the CBI, which was a central police organisation, had already been provided with adequate security measures for the protection of its personnel and property. The state government will take concrete steps in accordance with the situation and based on the threat perception existing at the time.
The court, however, turned down the request of the CBI counsel, Rakesh Kumar, to issue direction to the chief secretary and the director general of police to give an undertaking in respect to the three-point query. The court said there was no need for issuing a directive since the affidavit has been filed on behalf of the chief secretary.
The bench also asked the CBI to inform the Union government about the stand taken by the Bihar government. It described the report submitted by the intelligence agency to the Centre, about possible breakdown of law and order, as exaggerated and tendentious.
The court also asked the CBI and the CID to sit together and sort out the differences regarding the death of Harish Khandelwal, a small time supplier. While the CID in maintaining that Khandelwal committed suicide following constant grilling and harsh measures adopted by the CBI to make him an approver, the CBI feels that is not the case.
The matter would again come up for hearing on July 25 and the court would be reviewing the progress in the scam case. Meanwhile, the lawyer of the Union government, Ajay Tripathy, informed the court that the Centre had granted permission to prosecute the joint income tax commissioner, A C Choudhry, for his alleged involvement in the fodder scam.
