By IANS,
Patna : The Patna High Court has reopened a 1995 case of double murder in which Prabhunath Singh, a former MP of the ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) in Bihar, was acquitted.
Nearly 10 months after a Bihar ‘fast track’ court acquitted Prabhunath Singh and six others for lack of evidence, the high court Monday initiated a revision case.
Cort sfficials told IANS Tuesday that the case is likely to be taken up for hearing this week.
Singh was one of the prime accused in the murder of Daroga Rai and Rajendra Rai during the 1995 assembly polls in Saran district. Singh represented Maharajganj in parliament and was deputy leader of the JD-U parliamentary party before he was defeated in the last Lok Sabha elections.
Seven people, including Singh, were named in connection with the murders.
Daroga Rai and Rajendra Rai were killed when they were returning home after casting their votes in the Masrakh assembly constituency March 25, 1995. It was alleged that they had been murdered because they had voted for Singh’s rival.
The case against Singh was filed on the basis of a statement by Rajendra, who succumbed to his injuries at the Patna Medical College and Hospital six months later.
Cort officials said the original “seizure list” prepared by the officers investigating the case was missing from the trial court’s records. Two of the investigators — N.N. Thakur and Badri Ram — have also reportedly gone missing in the last two-and-a-half years. The two have not appeared in court despite repeated summons since the hearing started some two years ago.
Over two years ago, the Patna High Court ordered the trial to be transferred from a Bhagalpur court to the sessions court here to complete it in three months. That order came during hearing of a habeas corpus petition filed by Harendra Rai in connection with the kidnapping of Lal Muni Devi, a witness in the murder of her son Rajendra Rai.
The high court cancelled the judgement of the Bhagalpur sessions court in the case and directed the Bihar State Bar Council to inquire into the role of the public prosecutor.
Girija Devi, married to Lal Muni’s other son Harendra Rai, had Oct 24, 2006, filed a police complaint in Saran district, alleging that her mother-in-law was abducted by aides of Prabhunath Singh to influence the trial in the case.
Singh faces over two dozen criminal charges, including murder, kidnapping and extortion.