Patna: Charging the NDA government with
'anti-minority' bias for failure to extend term of the Justice
Madhavendra Saran Commission probing the Forbesganj police
firing last year, the Leader of Opposition Abdul Bari Siddique
on Monday demanded a CBI probe in the matter even as the
state government said that the process of extension of the
term of the judicial commission was underway.
"The term of Justice Saran commission is over for all
practical purposes and it has become a defunct commission as
the state government has not extended its term beyond December
22," he told reporters here.
The commission has no legal or constitutional right to
go ahead with probe in the police firing incident as its
tenure was over, Siddique said adding that the state
government's failure to extend the term of the judicial
commission before expiry of the term reflected its
'anti-minority' bias.
The Leader of Opposition in the state assembly
reiterated his demand for a CBI probe into the police firing
alleging that the policemen had shot dead four people of the
minority community, including a boy and a woman at Forbesganj
industrial area in Bihar's Araria district on June 3, 2011.
Meanwhile, the state government denied the
opposition's charge and said that the process for grant of
extension to the judicial commission was underway and such
an extension will be granted soon with effect from December
23, Home Secretary Amil Subhani told PTI.
The judicial commission was functional and carrying
out its investigation in the police firing case, he said.
Subhani said that there were precedents that the term
of judicial commission had been extended even after the expiry
of their tenure and it will be same as far as the term of
Justice Saran Commission was concerned.
The state government had constituted a one-man
judicial commission headed by Justice Madhavendra Saran, a
retired judge of the Patna High Court, to probe the Forbesganj
police firing, vide an official notification on June 22, 2011.
PTI
First Published: Monday, January 16, 2012, 22:39