Ranchi, Aug. 12: Jharkhand High Court rapped the government today for poor maintenance of the remand homes in the state.

The court, peeved by the attitude of the state, directed for the personal appearance of the home secretary, social welfare secretary and the inspector-general of prisons.

It also ordered the probationary officers and the superintendents of the girls? remand homes at Hatia and Deoghar to personally appear and explain the developments so far.

The division bench of Chief Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya, while hearing a public interest litigation filed by Bal Sakha on the poor condition of remand homes in the state, has asked the officers to explain what work has been done to improve the remand homes. The court also directed the state government to immediately accept the joining of members of the Juvenile Justice Board.

The board members have been directed to appear before the principal magistrate who will accept the joining of the Board members. The counsel for the state government informed the court that the Juvenile Justice Boards have been formed in seven districts. The government further informed the court that the State Advisory Committee, as mentioned in the Juvenile Justice Care and Protection Act, has also been constituted and is functioning in some districts of the state.

The PIL had been filed by Bal Sakha, a social organisation, way back in 2002 exposing the fallacies of the state government and the poor condition of inmates in the remand homes of the state.

The petitioners? counsels Delip Jerath and Jashodhara Tripathi stated that there is neither any educational facility nor medical facility available to the inmates of the remand homes. In the absence of the board and committee, the cases of juveniles are also not being dealt with in accordance with the Act, the counsels had said. The court, while hearing the case today, in an oral observation said all work of the state government is being done merely on pen and paper.

The bench was also not satisfied with the explanations given by the state government and remarked that the diet of the inmates of the remand homes was not worth Rs 19 as mentioned by the government.

Bail plea rejected

The high court today rejected the bail application of Ashok Sharma, a prime accused in cheating the Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) a sum of about Rs 69 lakh.

Sharma, 47-year-old, was arrested by Interpol in Bulgaria and brought to Ranchi by a special team of the CBI.

Sharma, along with one Shiv Shankar Singh, was wanted in a case for cheating and forging documents to illegally procure coal allotment orders from the CCL which was sold in the open market. Both the culprits had been evading arrest and were absconding. While Sharma was nabbed in Bulgaria, Singh is still not traceable.

Sharma had forged false coal allotment orders,between February and June, 1994, in favour of four companies ? Leatheroid Plastics, Sawhney Rubber, S.D. Industries and Suresh Metals. While the first two were genuine companies, the other two were false.

In another case the high court reserved its order in the matter of the government?s decision to fill the quota of reserved category students in the MBBS joint examinations held recently in the state. The state government today filed an affidavit explaining that according to the Medical Council of India (MCI) rules, 50 per cent marks have to be secured by general category students and 40 per cent by reserved candidates. Only two ST candidates and four students of the SC category were declared qualified while there were 53 seats for candidates belonging to the reserved categories. The government said the seats had to be filled and admissions have already been done.