Apex court turns a letter into PIL

PATNA: The Supreme Court has turned into a PIL a five-page letter written by Patna high court advocate Dinesh regarding rampant bribery and corruption in Patna civil court and aired by two TV news channels through their separate sting operations.
Dinesh had written the letter to Justice RF Nariman, Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice KM Joseph as how clerks inside the civil court at Patna were allegedly shown accepting money for several petty routine works in December 2017. He had urged the Supreme Court judges to direct the Patna high court to order an FIR under relevant sections against those judicial and clerical staff of the Patna district court who had been exposed in the sting operation.

Dinesh told TOI that Justice Chandrachud issued directions to turn his letter into PIL. “I came to know about it after receiving SMS from the Supreme Court,” he said on Wednesday.

“I had filed a PIL before Patna high court for initiating investigation and simultaneously lodging an FIR in the matter in October last year. However, even after the matter came up several times before four separate division benches, nothing happened. Following that, I wrote the letter to Supreme Court judges to take required action,” he said.

The advocate, in his letter, alleged that before filing the PIL, he had raised the matter before former Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and later to CJ M R Shah, but nothing happened.