HC: Muzaffarpur children's home rape a matter of shame for Bihar

PATNA: The Patna high court on Thursday while hearing two separate public interest litigations (PILs), made a remark on the state government that the rape of minor girls inside the Muzaffapur government children's home (balika grih) was a matter of shame for the state.

Soon after the hearing began on the PILs before the division bench of Justice Ravi Ranjan and Justice S Kumar at around 10.30am, advocate general Lalit Kishore submitted that the state government had taken decision to hand over the investigation of the Muzaffarpur children's home rape case to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The two separate PILs of Navnit Kumar and Santosh Kumar, were filed with primary prayer to the high court for directing state government to hand over the investigation of the case to CBI looking at the sensitivity of the matter. They were represented by counsels Alka Verma and Shama Sinha respectively.

“Looking at the ugly scenario being created in the backdrop of the children's home case, the state government has already decided to hand over its investigation to CBI even though police was all set to submit chargesheet in the case,” Kishore submitted.

To this, Justice Ranjan made verbal remark that the act, which has been done at the children's home in the state is ugly.. “There can’t be an uglier act than this. It's a matter of shame for the state,” Justice Ranjan made an oral observation.

He also asked if the missing girls from the home were traced or not to which Kishore replied that police were trying to trace them.

The matter had earlier come for hearing before the division bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice Rajeev Ranjan Prasad on July 9 who had directed the advocate general to seek instruction from the principal secretary of the concerned department and inform court about action taken in the case.

However, the matter was mentioned for urgent hearing by Verma and Sinha after which it came up for hearing before the division bench of Justice Ranjan and Justice Kumar on Thursday.

The court on Thursday put the matter for hearing again on August 6, as per the earlier direction of the division bench of Chief Justice after which it surfaced that the state had taken decision for transferring the case to CBI.