Muzaffarpur shelter home: Reports of CBI probing Nitish create rumblings
Patna: Reports of the CBI probe against Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar in the Muzaffarpur shelter home case have caused rumblings in political circles here.
RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha who recently joined the RJD-led grand alliance was the first to demand Mr Kumar’s resignation saying that, “fair probe is not possible if he continues to hold the CM’s chair”.
The situation occurred after a lawyer, Sudhir Kumar Ojha, said that the court while hearing the petition of his client Ashwani Kumar has directed the CBI to examine the role of the chief minister and others in connection with shelter home sexual abuse case.
Reacting sharply to development, the ruling JD(U) on Sunday called “forwarding of the petition to the CBI” a routine process and said that “the special POCSO court has not passed any order to the CBI to probe the role of chief minister in the Muzaffarpur shelter home case”.
Talking to this newspaper, JD(U) spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said that, “No such order has been given by the special court. It has no power to pass such an order to the CBI. It is a routine proc-ess that whenever an accused moves a petition the court forwards it to the investigating agencies for consideration”.
On Sunday despite strong denial from the ruling party, Sudhir Kumar Ojha maintained that “such an order was passed by the special POCSO court on Saturday and he would receive the copy of the order on Monday or Tuesday”.
The petitioner Ashwani Kumar is one of the accused and he was arrested in November last year for injecting sedatives to girls at Muzaffarpur shelter home.
According to lawyer Sudhir Kumar Ojha, Ashwani Kumar in his four-page petition submitted to the court said that “If CBI investigates Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Principal Secretary Atul Prasad, former Muzaffarpur District Magistrate Dharmendra Singh, and other officials then their role can also be exposed in the case”.
A week after the state government handed over the case to the CBI in July last year social welfare minister Manju Verma had stepped down from the post following allegations that her husband had links with main accused Brajesh Thakur.
“The USP of our Chief Minister has been good governance and it was our government which handed over the shelter home case to CBI. All those who are speaking against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar must see with whom they are standing today”, JD(U) spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said.
