Gaya, May 8: The convener of a women’s cell, who is also the wife of Gaya district magistrate Chaitanya Prasad, is under the scanner for her alleged high-handed behaviour.

Member of the Gaya Municipal Corporation and writer-activist Renuka Palit has levelled charges of high-handedness and misuse of the official machinery against Aparajita Prasad, convener of SURYA, a special women’s empowerment cell.

The cell was created to provide assistance to women who had been victims of domestic violence, dowry torture and other forms of persecution. Palit, herself an activist associated with the women’s cell, has given three examples to support her allegations.

According to her statement, Prasad had given herself the power to intervene in civil and property disputes on the pretext of the complainant being a woman, thereby undermining of the rule of law.

She intervened in a property dispute between two brothers and allegedly applied pressure on Sanjay Kumar, a resident of BN Jha Road, to vacate his house even though a partition suit (No. 147/04) was pending in the civil court.

In the second case, Prasad got a tenant evicted from a shop in the Gol Bagicha locality of the town with the help of police. According to the third allegation, one Wasi Bawarchi was summoned to Prasad’s office, harassed and sent to jail on false charges. This, too, was related to a property dispute.

While describing the charges as ?baseless?, Prasad said one Asha Devi approached her with a complaint against her brother-in-law Kumar. But, she claimed to have distanced herself from the matter soon after she came to know of the pending partition suit.

On the charges of eviction, Prasad said it was ?voluntary? and no force was used. But the person in question, Krishna Prasad Kesri, returned to the shop, owned by a widow, days after he vacated it.

Regarding the Bawarchi case, the convener of SURYA said she was tricked into the dispute by an ?overacting? daughter-in-law of Bawarchi, and subsequently left the matter to be independently handled by the police.

One of the aggrieved persons has lodged a complaint with the chief judicial magistrate while another has met the zonal inspector-general of police, Abhayanand.

Activist S.B. Bhaskar has demanded the dissolution of the cell, which, he feels, has been converted into a ?VIP wives’ club?.

Asked about her nomination to the post of convener, Prasad said the cell was originally constituted under the patronage of the Magadh commissioner with the Gaya district magistrate and superintendent of police being its chairman and vice-chairman respectively.

As then DM Brajesh Mehrotra was short of time, he nominated his wife Mamta Mehrotra as the convener. Prasad stepped into Mamta’s shoes after the current DM assumed charge about nine months ago.