District and sessions judge Birendra Kumar on Wednesday restrained police from taking coercive action against him builder Anil Singh, a day after a local court ordered the police to attach his property.

The police had started attaching Singh's property and taken furniture and decorative items away from Hotel Patliputra Exotica along Exhibition Road when the new order arrived. Hotel staff watched quietly, as the police swooped down around 10am.

While hearing Singh's anticipatory bail plea, the court also asked Gandhi Maidan police station to produce the case diary of the April 28 incident - when an FIR was lodged against Singh and his associates for trying to forcibly take possession of a plot on Exhibition Road - by May 17.

Anil and his men claim they had bought the 36-cottah plot, but many people living on the plot claim otherwise. The April 28 incident had led to a clash, traffic jam and a law and order problem.

On Tuesday, a court had ordered the police to attach the builder's property for which notices were pasted at the hotel and a flat belonging to him.

Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Manu Maharaaj said the police began attaching Singh's property but "as soon as an advocate arrived with court orders to stall the process, it was stopped".

Confiscated things will be released once the court asks for the same.

Before Singh's counsel arrived with the court's stay order, Janadhikar Party (Loktantrik) leader Pappu Yadav arrived and tried to stop the process. Witnesses claimed Pappu blamed the police for unnecessarily troubling businessmen when they were unable to catch criminals.

But the SSP said: "The police followed the court's directions. Whatever has been done has been done legally."

Pappu later confirmed to The Telegraph that he was passing by the hotel and stopped on seeing the commotion outside the hotel. Hotel staff told him the police were attaching property despite a new court order asking them to stop. He said while the police are unable to contain crimes, like the murder of a boy in Nalanda, it wants to hound businessmen out of the state.

On Tuesday, DIG (central range) Shalin had said that 13 cases of different kinds were lodged against Singh. Reviewing the cases, he said the authorities had never prosecuted Singh in a proper way and no serious attempt was made to arrest him.