Patna, Aug. 2: There is bad news for people facing charges of corruption in Bihar. Three additional special courts have been set up in the state to deal with the cases entrusted to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The Bihar government’s general administration department notified the appointment of judges for the three additional special courts on July 26, 2011. These judges will exclusively hear the cases probed by the country’s premier investigating agency.

Dhirendra Kumar Pandey, additional district and sessions judge, Patna, will head the additional special court-I, Bashishtha Narain Singh has been notified for the special court-II and Vijay Kumar Srivastava, additional district and sessions judge, Danapur, has been given the charge of additional special court-III.

The Centre had asked the state government to expedite the process of setting up three additional special courts to dispose of the pending cases. The Supreme Court had also issued directive to the Centre to make the courts operational across the country by August 4, 2011.

The proposal for setting up the additional special courts was under the consideration of the Bihar government for almost a year. While the Centre will take care of the expe-nses on the courts, the state is assigned to appoint judges.

Additional special courts were made operational in Jharkhand in 2010. Top officials in the CBI said that while two courts were set up in Ranchi, the third one was notified at Dhanbad.

The additional special courts will take up the cases registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Authoritative sources said that about 400 cases are pending for disposal in different courts across the state. Majority of them are related to financial irregularities in the execution of government schemes.

“Though the notification about the appointment of the judges has been issued, it is yet to be ascertained whether all three courts will function in Patna or elsewhere,” a CBI official said.

He said the trials of cases investigated by the CBI were adversely affected in absence of special courts in the state. Earlier, the judges had to look after the cases probed by the state police and the CBI. “There was no exclusive court for the trial of CBI-related cases. As a result, the number of pending cases went up in the state,” he said.

The officer said that after the setting up of the three courts, the pendency of CBI-related cases are expected to reduce drastically in the state.

Sources in the CBI said that the central government had last year approved the creation of 71 exclusive courts for the CBI across the country, considering the rise in the number of corruption cases pending for disposal.