Patna, July 4: Taking strong exception to Forensic Science Laboratory’s (FSL) lackadaisical approach in furnishing its report, Patna High Court today directed the state’s two FSLs to furnish all the pending reports within 90 days.

A division bench headed by Justice S.K. Katriar also directed the directors of the state’s two FSLs in Patna and Muzaffarpur to submit their report within a fortnight in the current cases.

The court passed the direction on a PIL filed by Vinod Kumar Singla seeking direction to the FSLs to furnish their reports, as delay in receiving it would cause further delay in disposal of criminal cases.

The petitioner submitted before the court that reports are pending in 3,672 cases since 2006 as the two FSLs could not furnish the viscera reports that hampers a trial, leading to delay. In another case, Chhaya Sarkar, an NGO, through its general secretary and advocate M.P. Gupta would mention his application before a division bench headed by Justice P.C. Verma seeking direction to state government to punish the erring engineers and government officials, who have failed in their duty to prevent floods in north Bihar’s dist ricts affecting about 2.5 lakh people in Muzaffarpur district.

Gupta submitted these engineers and officials would be responsible for any leakage or breach as the government has failed to come out with a state action plan despite National Disaster Management Authority’s letter in this regard to prevent floods in the event of related disaster.