Patna: In a massive crackdown on corruption, the Patna court administration has dismissed 17 court staff from services for taking bribes from litigants and advocates for doing various favours. This is the first time that so many court staffs were fired at a time for indulging in unlawful activities.
All the 17 dismissed staffs were posted with the Patna civil court and earned the ire of the court administration after they were caught on camera collecting bribes from the litigants and their advocates in lieu of giving choice dates for hearing and also forwarding those arrested under liquor laws to the jails of their choice, reports said.
The action comes some three years after a local TV news channel had exposed the rampant corruption in a sting operation at a Special Excise court in Patna. As the news made headlines, the then chief justice of Patna High Court Justice Rajendra Menon took suo motu cognizance of the case and ordered immediate suspension of all the accused persons caught on camera in all such unscrupulous deals.
Corruption charges
Eventually on Tuesday evening, the court issued a formal order announcing their dismissal from service after completion of all the legal formalities. Most of the dismissed staff are court readers, clerks, typists and peons. A separate case has also been registered against all the dismissed staff with the local police station after corruption charges were proved against them.
“The police have registered a case against all the accused persons on the order of the court and further legal actions are underway,” Patna’s senior superintendent of police Upendra Sharma told the media on Wednesday.
This is the second time in quick succession that the court had ruthlessly acted against its officials. In December, 2020, three senior judges posted at various courts in Bihar were dismissed from service after they were caught in compromising positions with women at a hotel in Nepal seven years back. The dismissed judges were also deprived of all reimbursements and post-retirement benefits, according to a notification issued by the General Administration Department, Government of Bihar, on December 17, 2020.
The dismissed judges included Hari Niwas Gupta, Jitendra Nath Singh and Komal Ram. Gupta was then posted as principal judge at a family court in Samastipur, Singh was posted as ad hoc Additional District and Sessions Judge in Araria district while Ram worked as the Chief judicial magistrate in the same district.
