The ruling JD(U) in Bihar Saturday claimed that the special POCSO court at Muzaffarpur has not passed any order directing the CBI to look into the allegations levelled against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and others by an accused in the shelter home sex scandal.
In a statement addressed to RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, who had shared news items in this regard on his Twitter handle, JD(U) spokesman Sanjay Singh said "no such order has been passed by the special court. It does not even have the power to issue any such direction to the CBI".
The counsel for the accused, Sudhir Kumar Ojha, however, maintained that such a direction has indeed been given by the POCSO court on a petition of an accused Ashwani, a self-styled doctor formerly attached to the Muzaffarpur shelter home, praying for a probe in view of continued funding of the home by the state government.
According to Singh, it is a routine process that whenever an accused moves an application before a court, the same is forwarded to the investigating agency for consideration.
"Tejashwi Yadav keeps making statements on the basis of hearsay. It could prove to be costly," he said.
The petitioner alleged that the CBI was "suppressing facts" which would come to light if the role of Kumar and other senior officials, in view of continued release of funds to the care unit from 2013 to 2018, was investigated.
According to Sudhir Kumar Ojha, special POCSO judge Manoj Kumar had passed the order on the petition seeking inquiry into the role played by the CM and two bureaucrats on Friday while on Saturday it passed a similar direction on a supplementary petition wherein names of six other government officials were mentioned.
Meanwhile, local news channels beamed footage of an advocate Sharat Sinha, described as "CBI counsel", wherein he was shown asserting that the court had passed no such order.
However, when contacted Ojha said Sinha is counsel for Dilip Verma - another accused in the case. I am going to sue him for misleading the people by falsely claiming to be the CBI counsel. The CBIs advocates are not locals. They come from Patna.
"Sinha is the counsel for an accused in not only this case but also for Mohd Shahabuddin prime accused in the journalist Rajdeo Ranjan murder case which is also being probed by the CBI. How can anyone represent both the accused and the respondent in any case.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
