Patna: Two months ago, Bali Choudhary, 45, a resident of Karwandiya panchyat in Rohtas district, around 165km south west of Patna, was garlanded by village residents. But that gave him no reason to cheer.

The Swachhata Panchayat, a community court run mostly by people of his community, the mukhiya, sarpanch and other elderly residents of the village, had found him guilty. The charge? The community squad had caught him defecating in the open. Punishment was unique. He was first garlanded in front of the whole village. Rajesh Sonkar, deputy mukhiya of Karwandiya panchayat, also a member of the local Swachhata Adalat, said this was done to trigger shame in the defaulter. Bali was also asked to plant a tree as part of the punishment.

Around two months back, the Swachhata Panchayat under Beladhi Panchayat in Rohtas district had awarded capital punishment of Rs 1,000 to another defaulter. "The Adalat also garlanded him and made him plant trees," said Beladhi panchayat sarpanch Saytendra Singh.

Swachhata Adalat, the court run by community members in Rohtas district, is one-of-its-kind. People run these courts and decide quantum of punishment, which is not stringent.

"Rohtas has surpassed all other districts so far as open defecation-free (ODF) programme is concerned," said Praveen More, water, sanitation and hygiene specialist at Unicef Bihar. "The community has declared all 19 blocks covering 245 gram panchayats in Rohtas as ODF. District-level verification is of the claim is on. After ODF declaration in the gram panchayats, it was felt that community-driven mechanism was needed to sustain it. Swachhata Adalat was one such approach introduced in all gram panchayats."

Unicef has collaborated with the state government in the ODF programme, providing it technical help.

Praveen said the Adalat had given unique punishments to defaulters, like writing the name of the open defecator in black letters on the Swachhata Adalat board.

So when does the Swachhata Adalat run? "It runs at 11am every Saturday," said Rajesh Sonkar, deputy mukhiya of the Karwandiya panchayat. "All officials related to ODF programme at the panchayat level, including mukhiya, deputy mukhiya, sarpanch and ward member meet to hear cases related to open defecation and award punishment. Right now cases of open defecation have come down, but our squads are still keeping an eye. Five quads comprising five people do the rounds of every ward in the morning and evening . There are 13 wards in my panchayat, so there are 65 squads.

"No fresh open defecation cases were noticed at Saturday's Swachhata Adalat, but we have decided to link those who don't have toilets at home to toilets at the nearest Aanganwadi centre.

"Apart from checking open defecation practices, we also have to find solutions to other problems. Say, in case a family is continuing with the practice, what can be the reasons and how we can address their problem?"