Realize Rs1.75 lakh from IAS officer to pay bankers: HC

PATNA: The Patna high court has ordered the state government to realize Rs1.75 lakh from IAS officer K K Pathak and pay Rs25,00 each to the seven State Bank of India managers as the litigation cost. Pathak as the principal secretary of registration, excise and prohibition department had ordered lodging of FIRs against the bank managers in March 2016.
Additional solicitor general SD Sanjay, who represented the SBI in the seven criminal writ petitions, said the order sheet was received two days back while the high court disposed of the matter on August 28.

Pathak had directed the sub-registrars of respective areas to lodge FIRs if the bank managers concerned failed to credit interest on the amount collected for deed registration and processing fees or furnish details of the amount till February 29, 2016. He had cited the RBI rules on transfer of amount by the banks to government accounts and alleged that the delay had caused loss to the government on account of interest. The high court on May 24, 2016 had stayed the investigation into all the FIRs.

The bench of Rajeev Ranjan Prasad termed Pathak’s act as unmindful, whimsical and misuse of power and quashed all the FIRs. The court granted liberty to the petitioners to seek remedies for malicious prosecution in accordance with law and also ordered the government to consider taking appropriate action against Pathak.

The seven FIRs were lodged by sub-registrars of respective districts with Bikram police station in Patna, Motipur in Muzaffarpur, Kamtaul in Darbhanga, Mohania in Kaimur, Piro and Jagdishpur in Bhojpur and Warisnagar in Samastipur in March 2016 against Ravi Shankar Singh, Ramesh Prasad Singh, Sanjay Kumar Srivastava, Pramod Kumar, Amit Kumar, Vikash Kumar Ojha and Samirvibhas Kerkitta respectively.

The court had asked if mere delay in remitting the amount from the bank account in the name of registry office to the government treasury or not furnishing details within two-three days as per the sub-registrars’ direction was the only reason for lodging of FIRs against the managers then what will happen to the government departments and treasuries which delayed payments to retired state government employees who had to file writ petitions in the high court.