The state government filed a confiscation case against former general manager of Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB), Patna, Ajay Kumar Prasad and his wife Rita Prasad in the special vigilance court on Friday.

Special vigilance judge R.C. Mishra fixed the next date of hearing on Saturday.

According to the petition, Ajay and former superintendent engineer of BSEB Ram Naresh Singh demanded Rs 1 lakh as bribe for reducing the electricity fine for a rice mill owner.

The mill owner went ahead and complained the matter to the vigilance investigation bureau, Patna.

Later, a verification trap team of the bureau nabbed Ajay red-handed, while he was accepting Rs 1,00,000 as bribe money on November 14, 2009. The bureau registered a case against Ajay and Ram Naresh on the same day.

The bureau had also conducted a raid at Ajay’s residence at Mohalla Nasrigang, Biscuit Factory Mor in Digha, Danapur, on the same day. The sleuths searched the house and found many documents of movable and immovable properties.

After a probe, the bureau found that Ajay had amassed properties worth Rs 20.3 lakh, which is disproportionate to his known source of income.

The investigation revealed that Ajay had disproportionate assets in the form of movable and immovable property in his name, and in the names of his wife, daughter Sweta and son Himanshu.

The bureau also found more properties were in the name of Ajay and Rita.

Life for lawyer

Additional district and sessions judge B.N. Singh on Friday sentenced 45-year-old Ara civil court advocate Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Raju Singh to life imprisonment in connection with the murder of a Ara civil court advocate, Manoj Kumar Singh.

After the judgment Rajiv was sent to Beur jail. According to the direction of Supreme Court, the case had been transferred to Patna judgeship from Ara judgeship for hearing.

According to the FIR, the informant and also the father of the deceased advocate, Ram Deo Singh, was consulting about a case with his elder son, advocate Manoj (the deceased), on the western verandah of the Ara civil court around 1pm on August 6, 2002. When Ram Deo proceeded about two steps for going to the court of the chief judicial magistrate, the accused, Rajiv Ranjan, along with other persons, surrounded Manoj.

Rajiv with a knife in his hand started raining blows on Manoj. He died in the course of treatment. Earlier, Rajiv had threatened Manoj, the FIR stated.

The FIR also stated that the cause of the attack was an argument over seating arrangement in the Bar association.