HC orders forced retirement of munsif.

PATNA: Patna high court on Tuesday ordered forced retirement of a judicial officer, Shambhu Verma, at a full court meeting presided by Chief Justice Rekha M Doshit here. Verma was a munsif at the Bhojpur district court and alleged to have taken a bribe of Rs 5 lakh through his peon Kavita Devi.

One Sunil Kumar had complained against Verma, alleging while he was hearing his election petition, he had favoured the opposite party by taking a bribe of Rs 5 lakh. Following the complaint, an inspecting judge conducted an inquiry into the matter and submitted its report which confirmed the allegation to the standing committee of the high court.

In a meeting of the standing committee held on February 25 this year, the committee recommended forced retirement of the officer. The full court comprising all the judges of the high court led by Chief Justice confirmed the committee's recommendation on Tuesday. The matter will now go to the state government for its final approval.
There were about 12 allegations against Verma of different natures. As per sources, Verma was to retire on January 31 in 2019. He is a 1986-batch judicial officer.

During the current year, this is the fourth case of stern action by the high court against a judicial officer. Earlier this year, Ajay Srivastava of Jehanabad was forcibly retired. Then three judicial officers were sacked for involvement in a sex scandal, and only a few days ago the SDJM of Sherghati in Gaya district, Ram Sajan was suspended for seeking sexual favours.

Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/HC-orders-forced-retirement-of-munsif/articleshow/31436065.cms

Bihar Cabinet Approves Dismissal of Three Judges.

A full court meeting of the Patna High Court chaired by Chief Justice Rekha M Doshit, held Saturday, has recommended to the Bihar government that a sub-judge, an ad hoc district and sessions judge and a principal judge be dismissed for engaging in “undesirable activities” last year.

The three judicial officers had allegedly crossed over to Biratnagar in Nepal after the 2013 Republic Day function and were “found with some women during a police raid” at a hotel.

A full-court meeting decision is final in matters of dismissal. The state government is likely to issue dismissal orders for the three officers of the Bihar Judicial Services this week. The three are Komal Ram (then judicial magistrate at Araria and now sub-judge at Nawada court), Jitendra Nath Singh (then additional district and sessions judge at Ara and at present ad hoc district and sessions judge at Ara) and Hari Niwas Gupta (then principal judge at family court, Samastipur, and at present principal judge, family court, at Muzaffarpur).

Though their detention had not been recorded, a Nepali newspaper had carried a report on the alleged incident on January 29, 2013, leading to an internal inquiry by the Patna High Court.

A seven-member standing committee meeting — headed by the chief justice — unanimously recommended the dismissal of the three, on February 5.

Singh said his family was “in a state of shock”. “Though I have not got official communication about the HC full committee recommendation to dismiss me and two others from service, I have heard about it. What can one say when I was not given a chance to tell my side of the story? In my 24-year service, no one could raise a finger on my integrity of character and now my image is sullied in one stroke.”

Singh added that while he had little option but to respect the high court’s decision, he would explore his legal options soon.

Ram maintained his version that he had been in Purnea on the said dates. Gupta was unavailable for comment.

Ram, Singh and Gupta are alleged to have left for Biratnagar after the function at their respective offices on January 26, 2013. They are said to have checked into Metro Guest House and Hotel, near the bus stand of the town.

As per the report carried by Nepali newspaper Udghosh, a Biratnagar police team led by inspector Pradip Singh had conducted raids at the hotel and found the three judges in objectionable position. However, according to the paper, when the police team learnt that the three persons in question were officers of the Bihar Judicial Services, they had been allowed to leave without their detention being recorded.

Earlier, following prima facie findings, Ram, Singh and Gupta had been demoted by the state government.

Investigation by Purnea district judge Sanjay Kumar had traced the location of their mobile phones to near Forbesganj (Araria) along the Indo-Nepal border on 26-27 January, 2013. While Ram claimed that he had been with his family in Purnea on 26-27 January, 2013, the two other judges had said they were present in Nepal on these days.

The Bihar Police said they had also found that the mobile numbers of the judges had been in silent mode between January 26, 2.30 pm, and 11 am, January 27. After 11 am, their mobile phones were seen as operational in India.

Source:http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/Bihar-Cabinet-Approves-Dismissal-of-Three-Judges/2014/02/12/article2051278.ece

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/patna-hc-seeks-dismissal-of-3-judges-for-undesirable-activities/

Suspended Judge Arrested for involvement in the Court Clerk Recruitment Scam

Suspended district and sessions judge, Ajay Kumar Sharda was arrested in Ajmer last week, for his alleged involvement in the scam over recruitment of lower division clerks in courts. The arrest was made by the Anti Corruption Bureau in Rajasthan.

On April 23 last year, the ACB arrested an advocate of nearby Kekeri town, Hemraj Kanawat, court clerk Rajesh Sharma, Nasirabad court’s nazir Hitesh Sharma and a clerk in a subordinate court and a middleman, Abdul Razzak. Another accused, advocate Bhagwan Singh Chouhan evaded the arrest and is still absconding. Six others, arrested this Friday and were sent to judicial custody for ten days. Several paces in Ajmer and Nagpur districts were raided by the ACB’s Ajmer team. All these six accused are alleged to have either paid bribes to get a job for themselves or tried to influence selection.

The judge’s name had come up due to his allegiance with the main accused in the case, lawyer Hemraj Kanawat. The duo reportedly had regular telephonic conversations and home visits. The bureau seized huge amount of cash from Kanawat and lawyer Bhagwan Singh Chauhan’s residences as well as seized laptops and chits quoting names and roll numbers of candidates from their possession. According to the HT report, Sharda’s link with the main accused is yet to be established.

The ACB which arrested the judge was headed by Additional SP Hardayal Singh. He was arrested from Subhash Nagar Locality in Rajsmand and after a medical checkup, was taken to Ajmer.

He was then produced in the Court of a Special Designated Judge, who sent him to a 15-day judicial custody. A designated court, on May 20, had rejected the charge sheet filed in the case on the grounds of the agency’s ineffectiveness in arresting all the accused. This triggered the series of arrests that followed.

The scam came to light in April last year when Sharda was posted as the District and Sessions judge in Ajmer. The scam had been exposed by the ACB, in which the court clerks were being recruited by the use of money power, decisions being influenced by the money paid by the candidates. Soon after he was removed and placed in the awaiting rearrangement for further order. However, he was later suspended.

The scam came to the fore after the examination for court clerks were conducted and the results were supposed to be announced. Some candidates who had appeared in exams had alleged corruption in the recruitment process.

Houses of two employees of a lower court in Ajmer were raided, along with houses of two advocates, in April last year when cash worth over Rs 17-lakh was recovered. Sharda’s name cropped up during investigation.

They have been charged under sections 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13(2) and 13(2) D of the Prevention of Corruption Act along with 109 and 120B of IPC.

Source:http://www.livelaw.in/suspended-judge-arrested-involvement-court-clerk-recruitment-scam/

Akshardham attack: POTA court acquits remaining 2 accused

Shaukatullah Ghori (left) and Majid Patel in Ahmedabad on Friday. (Express Photo: Javed Raja)

A special Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA) court on Friday acquitted the remaining two accused in the Akshardham temple terror attack case, three weeks after the Supreme Court let off six accused for want of evidence. The two accused were in the jail for the past five years since their arrest.

Special POTA court Judge Geeta Gopi ordered acquittal of Mohammad Umarji alias Majid Patel and Hafiz Kasuri alias Shaukatullah Ghori, who were arrested by Ahmedabad’s Detection of Crime Branch in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

Ghori was serving as a muezzin in a mosque in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, who was accused for raising funds and attended meeting in Riyadh and Hyderabad where the alleged conspiracy was hatched for the attack. Ghori is the bother of Farhatullah, an alleged hardcore militant and wanted in other terror related cases including Akshardham.

Umarji, a resident of Bharuch, was chargesheeted for providing funds to the accused conspirators which he allegedly received through hawala racket. Umarji’s brother-in-law, Asif V Patel, said outside the court that the whole case led to a disaster in Umarji’s family. “Relationship broke as people in the community suspected him as a terrorist. The damage has been done. The five years lost in the jail would not come back. However, we don’t have complaints against the police,” Patel said.

A Supreme Court bench on May 16 had acquitted six accused, who had been convicted by the sessions court and the Gujarat High Court in 2010.

SC refused to rely on the evidence produced by the prosecution. During the hearing, the prosecution had referred to the SC judgment and said that it had refused to rely on Bhavnagari’s statement and rejected the conspiracy charge against the accused. On September 24, 2002, terror attack on Askshardham temple in Gandhinagar claimed more than 30 lives.

Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/ahmedabad/akshardham-attack-pota-court-acquits-remaining-2-accused/

Homecoming after 11 years for these Akshardham attack “Terrorists”

Eleven years ago to the day on Tuesday, Sulaiman Bhai Ajmeri’s wife pleaded with the Gujarat Police that her husband was an innocent mechanic and not a terrorist involved in the attack on the Akshardham Temple in Gujarat.

Each time during the 11 years Mr. Sulaiman remembered his wife’s desperate attempts to prove his innocence, he broke down. But on Tuesday, he looked calm and composed after the Supreme Court ordered that all the six convicted by the lower court, including Sulaiman, be freed.

Two fidayeens sprayed bullets from their Ak-56 rifles and used hand grenades to kill 33 persons and injured another 86 before at Akshardham Temple before being killed by NSG commandos on September 25, 2002. The six members of minority community were charge-sheeted. A trial court had awarded death sentence to three of them, life imprisonment to two and 10-year imprisonment to remaining man.

While acquitting the accused, the Apex Court pulled up the Gujarat Police for framing “innocent” people in the case and accused the then Gujarat Home Minister of non-application of mind” in granting sanction to prosecute the six under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA).

Mr. Sulaiman got the news of his acquittal on the day the Modi wave was sweeping the country.

“My family was ostracized by society. Only a few gathered the courage to support me for they knew the real Sulaiman — a poor mechanic who worked with his father to make ends meet,” he said on Tuesday, during an interaction with the media here while describing about his ordeal as a “dreaded terrorist”.

Sulaiman said the only hope for “terrorists” like him and his five co-accused was the judiciary, while explaining how the Apex court ordered that the Gujarat police had failed to establish their guilt beyond reasonable doubt and their confessional statements were invalid to prove their involvement in the terror strike.

Mufti Abdul Qayum, whose death sentence by the trial court in Gujarat was quashed by the Apex court last week, recounted how he was forced to sign the confessional statement prepared by the police under coercion.

“Torture and coercion”

“The police tortured and forced me to write the letters. They claimed the letters were found from the pockets of the fidayeen killed during the attack. But the Supreme Court noticed that the letters were clean, not torn, or soiled/stained with blood or soil — which was highly unnatural and improbable as the terrorists’ bodies were covered with blood and mud, and their clothes had multiple tears and holes due to the bullets,” Mr. Qayyum recounted.

Mr. Qayyum and the others of what they call “victims of State terror” will move to the Supreme Court for compensation for the precious 11 years of their lives that were “wasted in most inhumane manner”.

Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind president Mulana Syed Arshad Madani, the organisation that helped the six of them, told The Hindu: “The media play a negative role by dubbing arrests of the Muslims as big breakthroughs in terror cases. And when acquittal happens, no one covers it. No one is bothered that they have been acquitted after 11 years.”

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/homecoming-after-11-years-for-these-akshardham-attack-terrorists/article6032120.ece