A 15-year wait to find the culprits of her daughter’s murder behind bars ended in some sort of consolation for Manju Devi with Patna High Court suspending additional district and sessions judge (Bhagalpur) Radhashyam Sharma.

“The additional district and sessions judge has been suspended following the order of the high court in the wake of the illegal acquittal of all the accused persons in the Kalpana Devi dowry murder case. We received a fax message of Sharma’s suspension late on Friday evening. Sharma was scheduled to retire from his post on July 31, 2012,” Mohammed S. Kausar, the registrar of civil court (Bhagalpur), said on Sunday.

Manju, a resident of Kundi Tola in the Nathnagar area of Bhagalpur city, had earlier accused the court of district and sessions judge of saving the persons who had allegedly killed her daughter for dowry.

Kalpana was married to Binod Rajak of Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, on June 9, 1994. Binod’s family had allegedly put pressure on Kalpana’s parents to pay Rs 1 lakh after the marriage despite the latter fulfilling the Rajaks’ demands before the wedding. On June 11, 1997, Kalpana was burnt alive allegedly by Binod and other members of his family. She succumbed to her injuries in a hospital in Varanasi on June 20.

On the basis of a complaint lodged by Kalpana’s father, Surendra Rajak, a case of dowry death (case No- 122/98) was registered. Besides Binod, Kalpana’s mother-in-law and brothers-in-law were named accused.

According to sources in the civil court, the case (Session case No- 273/2001) was being heard in the court of the additional district and sessions judge, Bhagalpur. On June 17, 2012, Sharma in his order acquitted Binod, his elder brother, Mohan Baitha, younger bothers Alok and Yogendra and mother Shyama Devi from the charges of killing Kalpana for dowry.

“Earlier, the prosecution side had urged the court to hear one Gulabi Rajak as a witness. But without considering the request, the court had imposed a fine of Rs 2,000 on the additional public prosecutor,” said Sanjay Kumar, the additional public prosecutor representing Kalpana’s parents. He added that Manju Devi had applied before the court on June 13, 2012, so that she could file a revision petition against the incident in the high court.

In the wake of the lower court’s verdict, Manju Devi on June 20 registered her complaint with the Supreme Court and the high court against Sharma. She alleged that during the judgment, not a single accused was physically present in the court. “More interestingly, a lady advocate from the defence side used to move the case through she did not sign on the power earlier in the case,” she alleged in her complaint.

On learning the latest development, Manju said: “I hope that the culprits who are on bail now would be punished for killing my daughter.”