Bihar shelter home rapes: Patna HC raps CBI for failing to submit report, transferring SP heading probe

Asking why the court was not informed beforehand about the transfer, the Bench asked the CBI counsel to keep the court informed about such processes in future.

Patna High Court (File Photo)

PATNA: Patna High Court, which is monitoring the probe by CBI into the sexual exploitation of minor girls at a shelter home in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur, on Thursday pulled up the central agency for failing to submit before it a report on the progress of the probe and transferring the SP heading the probe.

A division Bench of Chief Justice MR Shah and Ravi Ranjan expressed displeasure over CBI’s failure to submit the report regarding the progress of the probe on the appointed date. The CBI counsel sought more time, but the Bench directed the agency to submit the report in a sealed envelope during the next hearing slated for August 27.

The Bench asked CBI why its SP JP Mishra was transferred in the middle of the probe and that too just two days before the date fixed for submitting the report to the court. Asking why the court was not informed beforehand about the transfer, the Bench asked the CBI counsel to keep the court informed about such processes in future.

Since CBI’s main counsel in the case, Vipin Bihari Sinha, was not present at the court, a junior lawyer represented CBI. Dissatisfied by the lawyer’s replies, the Bench asked him to come fully prepared during the next hearing.

Observing that there have been reports in the media about possible raids, searches, seizures and arrests, the court also asked CBI how its probe plans were getting leaked to the media. Terming it a “serious issue,” the Bench asked the media to not show or print anything related to the case in advance.

JP Mishra, who had been heading the probe into the shelter home case since it was taken over by the agency on July 29, was shifted from CBI’s Special Crime Branch unit and attached to the office of the DIG in Patna on Tuesday.

While CBI said the transfer was a “routine process,” Opposition parties in Bihar decried the move, saying it raised suspicion that the direction of the probe was being influenced in order to protect powerful people linked to the case.

Under Mishra’s leadership, CBI teams had conducted dozens of raids across Bihar and interrogated former social welfare minister Manju Verma and her husband Chandeshwar Verma, a former MLC. Manju Verma had resigned from her post on August 8 after her husband’s name surfaced in the case.