Patna DSP (law & order) guilty of contempt, quantum of punishment on Nov 10

PATNA: The Patna high court on Tuesday held Patna DSP (law & order) Mamta Kalyani guilty of contempt of court for not submitting the station diary in a gang rape case registered with Kotwali police station despite several reminders by the then SSP Manu Maharaaj.
The court of Justice Shivaji Pandey had sought the case diary from Patna police against Shankar Raut, one of the accused, on April 19. Raut had appealed for anticipatory bail pleading that the other accused in the case were granted bail.However, the diary was not submitted till August 29. The court was informed that the SSP, Patna, had sent several reminders to the DSP (law & order) in this regard on April 26, May 15, June 26 and on July 4.
The court of Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah had served a show-cause notice to Mamta on August 29 and ordered her to personally appear on September 15. Mamta submitted the diary with her reply to the notice on that date but the court was not satisfied with her excuses. Justice Amanullah had asked her to reply on October 14 why she should not be punished for contempt of court.
Hearing the bail plea on Tuesday, the court was again not satisfied with her reply and held her guilty of contempt of court. The quantum of punishment will be pronounced on November 10.
Solar light scam: Hearing a PIL, the division bench of Patna high court on Tuesday directed Buxar, Bhojpur and Ara DMs to submit their reports of inquiry in their respective districts in the alleged solar light purchase scam.
The three DMs on Tuesday submitted a counter affidavit before the bench of Justice V N Sinha and Justice Prabhat Kumar Jha with details about the number of FIRs lodged and certificate proceedings initiated to recover the embezzled amount. However, the three did not furnish the inquiry report.
“In Buxar, 124 FIRs were lodged while 10 were registered in Vaishali and 42 in Ara to recover the embezzled money,” petitioner Nagrik Adhikar Manch’s counsel Dinu Kumar said. The bench ordered the DMs to give detailed inquiry reports on October 21.
Dinu submitted that at least Rs5 lakh was granted to each panchayat through the Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF), which amounts to around Rs400 crore for 8486 panchayats in the state. However, the local governing bodies installed substandard solar lamps without even inviting tenders. The lamps became out of order within two or three months of their installation.