Former motor vehicle inspector Raghuvansh Kunwar’s house in Patna that was confiscated by the Bihar government. Telegraph picture

New Delhi, May 17: The Supreme Court has issued notices to the Bihar government on a batch of petitions challenging the legality of a law that allows the state government to attach the property of corrupt officials even before trial.

A three-judge bench of the court issued the notices on Friday but refused to stay the law for the time being. The state government was represented at the hearing by senior counsel Ranjit Kumar and state standing counsel Gopal Singh.

The state government had notified the Bihar Special Courts Act, 2009, on February 8, 2010. The law provides that properties of corrupt persons could be attached even at the probe stage if the authorised officer came to a conclusion that they were acquired as a result of the offence committed by the accused.

The state has since used the law against some officials. Patna High Court had earlier upheld the legality of the law. Now the Supreme Court has refused a stay on it, implying that the state government could, till the court decides, use it against errant officers.

Several accused in different cases lodged by the Vigilance Department of Bihar under Section 13(1)(e) and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, have filed the appeals against the high court order of February 23, 2011.

These accused claim that chargesheets were filed against them in the cases lodged prior to 2008-2009. They said they had no grievance regarding transfer of cases from a criminal court to a court of a special judge but against the power granted to an authorised officer to confiscate properties of an accused at the state of investigation or prior to the trial.

This empowers the authorised officer to decide by way of affidavits alone whether the property was the result of an offence, which is the subject matter of a parallel criminal trial, they said.

Confiscation of property during pendency of trial also violated the due procedure clause as guaranteed under articles 14 (right to equality), 19 (freedom) and 21 (right to life) of the Constitution, they added.

“In the teeth of such constitutional guarantees, the legislature could not make a provision whereby, without taking evidence on oath, without cross-examination and without establishing guilt beyond reasonable doubt, the accused is deprived of all his worldly possessions. Depriving a person of all his properties is as good as taking away his right to live with human dignity,” their petitions said.

Such a harsh punishment could only be imposed after a criminal trial, they said.

“The confiscation can be ordered only after the offence is proved beyond reasonable doubt as till then the accused is presumed to be innocent,” their petition said.