Patna High Court on Monday directed the Patna University authorities to file an affidavit in the case related to recovery of bombs from Saidpur hostel on July 31 this year.

The court had directed the university to file an affidavit by October 3. A division bench of the high court of Chief Justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari and Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan passed the order.

The court had earlier taken cognisance of the matter after social activist Vikas Chandra alias Guddu Baba, during the hearing of another case related to encroachment at the varsity, showed the copy a newspaper with an article published on recovery of bombs from Saidpur hostel. Justice Ansari then directed the state government to reply on the bomb recovery issue.

Police had recovered five live bombs and explosive materials from Saidpur hostel during a raid on July 31.

Senior superintendent of police Manu Maharaaj had then claimed that the explosives were stored allegedly for carrying out some sort of campus violence. Four students were arrested in this connection.

On September 20, the court had directed the superintendents of all the hostels under Patna University to submit a list of inmates of all varsity hostels, including Saidpur, to the court by September 22. The court had asked for lists, as it wanted to know if anti-social elements were not living in the hostels.

However, the same was not submitted to the court on September 22. The bench, headed by Ansari, observed: "Why not all the hostels of Patna University should be shut down. The court will not allow the lives of those living near the hostels in danger."

It (court) then directed the varsity authorities to submit the list of hostel inmates on September 23, which was again not complied with.

On Monday, the authorities again failed to submit the list of students living in Saidpur hostel though it has provided a list of students of a few other hostels to the court.

Varsity counsel Vivekanand Prasad Singh told the court that the wardens and the hostel superintendents were reluctant to take action against the erring students as they live with their families on the hostel premises and that in the absence of adequate security, they fail to take any such action.

Saidpur hostel was freed of encroachers on September 26, 2015, on the directive of the high court.

It had taken the district administration and Patna University more than eight years to evict the illegal occupants from the Saidpur campus.

However, few days after the encroachers were evicted, they again came back.