Patna High Court on Tuesday directed the state government to get all FIRs registered in Bihar online by October 15.

The state government on Tuesday informed the court that all arrangements had been done in Patna and Nalanda districts to get FIRs registered online and that it needed some more days to implement the scheme statewide. After this, the court set the October 15 deadline.

The order was passed by a division bench of chief justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari and Ravi Ranjan.

The court's direction came in newspaper reports in which some undertrials sought regular bail on forged documents, including a forged FIR produced by the accused in the court on June 8 this year. The court took cognisance of the reports and converted it into a PIL.

The case was related to one Munchun Kumar Rai, who was accused of killing one Sonu Kumar in 2015 under the jurisdiction of Beur police station in Patna. The accused had not only produced forged FIR to seek bail but also fake copies of the high court order granting bail to other co-accused in the same case.

The high court had then ordered a CBI inquiry into the case. Even, the licence of the two lawyers - Jay Kumar and Ran Vijay Kumar Singh - representing Munchun in the case were suspended with further directives to the Bihar state bar council to initiate disciplinary action against both the lawyers.

The court in its order had said: "The aforesaid facts and circumstances demonstrate clearly and convincingly that the petitioner has certainly set in motion in conscionable scheme duly calculated to interfere with the judicial system ability to deal with the matter in a fair and impartial manner. The terrible and indisputable acts of omissions and commission noted above are an open threat to the criminal justice system."

On September 6, during further hearing of the case, the court had ordered the CBI to submit a status report in a sealed cover to the court. The CBI on Tuesday submitted the report to the court.

Regarding state's readiness to implement online FIR system, inspector-general (IG), state crime record bureau (SCRB), Kamal Kishore, on Tuesday said the new system had already been introduced at the district headquarters level.

"Now, the scanned copies of the FIRs are being uploaded on the official website of the state crime record bureau - www.scrbbihar.gov.in - since September 26. One can go through the contents of the FIR and also download them from the website. Initially, the facility to upload the copies of the FIR is available at the district headquarters level, which would be extended up to the police station-level in different phases," Kishore said on the sidelines of the high court order.

The IG, SCRB, said the computer operators posted in the offices of the superintendents of police (SPs) were imparted training at a state-level workshop in Patna on September 24 this year for the effective implementation of the new system.

IG (modernisation) Amit Kumar Jain, summoned by the high court in the case related to Munchun on June 9 this year, had said it will take about two years to computerise all the police stations in the state. The court had earlier asked him to reply on how long it will take to computerise all the police stations in the state to prevent such incidents in the future.

The bench had then directed the state government to explore possibility of alternate modes of providing Internet connectivity to all the police stations in Bihar.

Kishore said the new system was not a part of the crime and criminal tracking network and systems launched by the Centre.

"The CCTNS is a time-consuming process. As we had to meet the deadline set by the high court, we introduced the new system as a pilot project in the state," he said.

However, there are exceptions of the new system. The cases related to rape or the offences registered under the protection of children from sexual offences Act (POCSO) will not be uploaded on the website according to the order of the Supreme Court. Similarly, FIRs against juveniles and those related to terrorism (insurgency) will also not be uploaded.

The SCRB has sought assistance from the police headquarters to run the new system properly. There are over 900 police stations and outposts across the state.