Bihar’s much-publicised anti-corruption law, enacted by the Nitish Kumar-led government empowering the state government to seize the properties of public servants accused of corruption even when their cases are under trial, may have met judicial hurdles at the Patna high court.
After a 10-day hearing on a bunch of petitions claiming that the Bihar Special Courts Act 2009, brought into force in February 2010, was illegal and a violation of constitutional provisions, a division bench of the high court on Monday reserved its order.
Justices Shiva Kirti Singh and Ravi Ranjan of the bench heard both the petitioners and the state government during the hearings.
After hanging fire with the central government waiting for the presidential assent for 11 months, the Bihar Special Courts Bill 2008, which was passed by the Bihar legislature in March 2009, finally got President Pratibha Patil’s nod in the last week of January 2010.
Some serving and retired government officials facing vigilance cases for allegedly amassing massive properties beyond their known sources of income had moved court against the law in August 2010.
The petitioners urged the court to declare the law and its rules as framed by the state government for confiscation of the properties of public servants accused of corruption as illegal and violation of Constitution’s Article 14 and 21.
The state government maintained that the law aimed at categorising the evil of corruption as a special class of offence and creating special courts for speedy disposal of corruption cases.
This law and Mr Nitish Kumar’s populist pre-poll statement that his government would use the confiscated properties of corrupt officials to open schools is said to have played a role in bringing his coalition National Democratic Alliance government back to power with a landslide majority in November 2010.
The government, in fact, ordered for the first such school to be opened in the confiscated house of former motor vehicles inspector (MVI) Raghuvansh Kunwar in Samstipur district’s Chaira village last month.