District magistrate Sanjay Kumar Singh listens to a complainant at Thursday’s janata darbar. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, July 7: Miss the people’s court and be deprived of your salary.

Patna district magistrate Sanjay Kumar Singh today ordered the treasury department to stop the payment of salary for this month to all district education department officers who were missing from the weekly janata darbar.

“All those officers of the district education department who are not present at today’s janata darbar will not get their salary until my next order. It has become a regular habit of a few officers, who don’t care to turn up for the janata darbar. This will not be tolerated anymore and strict action will be taken against all such officers,” Singh said.

Among those missing today were the district education officer, Nityanand Lal, and his deputy, Lallima.

Complaints started pouring in as soon as Singh sat down for his weekly darbar at 10.30am. As many as 175 complainants turned up for the darbar, of whom more than 50 had queries related to the education department, none of whose officers were present.

As an exasperated district magistrate barked out the salary-stop order, the officials from other departments started calling those absent and asked them to come over to the collectorate at any cost. After about half an hour, some of them were seen huffing and puffing into the darbar, just to show their faces if not for anything else.

A few weeks ago, the district magistrate had threatened the absent officers with strict action if they missed the weekly meet.

Singh, an Orissa cadre IAS officer on deputation to Bihar, told The Telegraph that he wanted to set an example. “The officers have to understand that the janata darbar is meant for solving the problems of the common people. This message has to go out to all errant officials. They have to keep in mind that they can’t run away from it and it is mandatory to attend the janata darbar,” the officer said. “If the officials of the department concerned are not present, then it becomes quite difficult to take up the issue in a proper manner. These are the officials who understand the problems better. Strict action will be taken against any official who stays away in future as well. I can’t tolerate laziness.”

Sources in the Patna collectorate said a formal letter would be sent to all truant officials tomorrow. “They will be informed through letter that they will not be receiving their salary until the next order of the DM because they have failed to turn up for the weekly janata darbar,” said an official.

The source, however, refused to reveal how many officials had skipped today’s meeting. “More officials will face the heat of the district magistrate but owing to some official reason, it’s not possible to disclose all names,” said the source.

One of the complainants, who had come to the darbar regarding scholarship money, said: “Last time also when I visited the darbar, the officials concerned were absent and my complaint was not listened to properly. Though I got to speak to the DM, he expressed helplessness because of the absence of the officials. This action was necessary to make them realise their duties and responsibilities towards the common man.”