By IANS,
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Monday sought the Bihar government’s response to a state legislator’s lawsuit seeking to quash a Patna High Court order jailing him for three months for abusing a judicial magistrate.
Issuing notice to the Bihar government on the plea by Sunil Pandey, the lawmaker from Piro seat, a bench of Justice B.N. Agrawal and Justice G.S. Singhvi fixed Jan 7 as the next date of hearing for the case.
Sunil Pandey’s counsel Samir Ali Khan argued that the Patna High Court had not followed the due procedure of the law while convicting his client on contempt of court charges and jailing him for three months.
Facing a trial on charges of kidnapping, Pandey was brought before the Bikramganj sub-divisional judicial magistrate April 25, 2007, when he allegedly barged into the magistrate’s chamber and created ruckus in an inebriated state.
He also abused and threatened the magistrate, following which the matter was reported to the Patna High Court.
The high court convicted him and his three police guards, who had escorted him to the court from the jail and had allegedly allowed the legislator to consume liquor on the way to the court.
The convicted were awarded jail terms of three months Sep 10 this year. But the sentence was suspended for one month.
Pandey in his lawsuit against his conviction contended that he never consumed liquor and there was no proof either.
He said he had entered the judicial chamber to sign some document for which he had to sit on the chair in front of the magistrate. Being a handicapped person, he was not in a position to sign the document while standing that infuriated the judge, he contended.