HC demands Manju Verma's case diary; defers hearing on Brajesh Thakur's bail

The Patna High Court Wednesday directed the Bihar government to produce the case diary pertaining to an FIR lodged against former minister Manju Verma following the recovery of a huge cache of ammunition from her residence during a CBI raid recently.

The Patna High Court Wednesday directed the Bihar government to produce the case diary pertaining to an FIR lodged against former minister Manju Verma following the recovery of a huge cache of ammunition from her residence during a CBI raid recently.

Justice Sudhir Singh ordered that the case diary is produced by October 3, while hearing the bail plea of Verma, against whom an FIR has been lodged under the Arms Act at a police station in Begusarai district.

Verma had stepped down as the social welfare minister last month following reports of her husband's alleged links with Brajesh Thakur - prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal. Raids were conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) a few days after her resignation, at her bungalow in Patna and her in-laws' house at Cheria Bariarpur in Begusarai from where 50 cartridges were found.

A case was subsequently registered against the ex-minister and her husband Chandrashekhar Verma. Their anticipatory bail plea was rejected by a Begusarai court on August 26. Meanwhile, the court also deferred hearing on the bail application of Brajesh Thakur for two weeks following a submission by CBI counsel Sanjay Kumar that the probe agency has not been provided with a copy of the petition.

Thakur headed the NGO which ran the shelter home in Sahu Road locality of Muzaffarpur where sexual abuse of inmates came to light in a social audit conducted by Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Thakur was arrested in June, shortly after a case was registered in pursuance of the social audit report by the state social welfare department. His NGO was blacklisted and its registration canceled while the girls lodged there were shifted elsewhere. Medical examinations confirmed that more than 30 of the girls lodged there - all of them minors - had sexual intercourse.

The case was handed over to the CBI by the Nitish Kumar government following a huge public outcry against the incident. 

(With inputs from agencies.)