| Court Drama |
| Accused: First class judicial magistrate V.C. Pandey and peon Bibhuti Kumar posted in the magistrate’s office |
| Charges: Peon asked for Rs 5 lakh to obtain bail for the father of one Haider Ali allegedly on the behest of Pandey |
| Evidence: Taped conversation between Ali and Singh |
| Result: Magistrate suspended, peon sent to jail |
Ranchi, Sept. 13: A first class judicial magistrate, V.C. Pandey, and his orderly, Bibhuti Kumar Singh, were today placed under suspension on a bribery charge and the orderly, from whom cash worth Rs 13,390 was recovered, was sent to jail.
Jharkhand High Court, while placing the magistrate under suspension, directed him to remain at the headquarters till completion of an inquiry.
The orderly, who is learnt to have claimed that the cash had been given to him by the magistrate for preparing a bank draft in favour of his daughter, was remanded to judicial custody by judicial commissioner D.N. Upadhyay.
Haider Ali, son of a land-scam accused arrested by Argora police on September 10, had caused a sensation yesterday by claiming that the orderly and an advocate by the name of Avinash Pandey had negotiated a bribe “on behalf of the magistrate” to grant bail to his father.
The duo, he had alleged, were working as touts for the magistrate and had initially demanded a sum of Rs 5lakh for granting bail. When he expressed his inability to pay such a high amount, they scaled down the demand to first Rs 1.5lakh and then settled for Rs 14,000.
But by then the magistrate had dismissed his father’s bail application, prompting an infuriated Haider Ali to produce video footage of the conversation he had allegedly with the orderly and the advocate.
The judicial commissioner forwarded the footage to the high court yesterday, which eventually led to the suspension of the magistrate.
Chief judicial magistrate, Ghanshyam Kumar Mallick, forwarded the case against the orderly under the ‘Prevention of Corruption’ Act to the court of Special Judge ( Vigilance), A.K. Singh. He also directed that the case be investigated by a police officer not below the rank of a DSP.
No action, however, has been initiated against the advocate, whose name does not figure in the FIR either. The advocate claimed that a “rival lawyer” had tried to falsely implicate him and tarnish his image due to professional rivalry.
“He is appearing against me in more than 20 cases. He had sought my help in some cases and when I declined, he planned a sting operation to frame me,” he claimed.
