Muzaffarpur case: SC terms ‘horrible’ and ‘scary’ details placed before it by CBI

‘Neighbours often heard screams from the shelter home’

Manju Verma talks to mediapersons after resigning as Social Welfare Minister, in Patna, Bihar on August 08, 2018. File

A shocked Supreme Court said on Thursday that details emerging from the CBI investigation into the sexual abuse of minor inmates at a Muzaffarpur shelter home in Bihar was scary.

CBI report before a Bench led by Justice Madan B. Lokur said the main accused, Brajesh Thakur, had access to a mobile phone in jail and was in constant touch with the outside world. The court asked him to respond why he should not be transferred to a facility outside Bihar.

A CBI report said Thakur was known to be a “very influential person and people in the neighbourhood are scared of him.” It said Thakur’s neighbours had often heard girls screaming inside the shelter home, but were too frightened to report it to the police.

The court has ordered an Income Tax investigation into the assets of Thakur. The court’s primary focus was on the ₹4.5 crore he received from the Bihar government in the past 10 years to finance the “activities” of his NGO called Sewa Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti, which ran the shelter home. The Bench had directed the CBI to look into the “antecedents, connections and influence” of Thakur and the NGO.

Verma’s whereabouts

The Bench questioned the Bihar government and the CBI about the whereabouts of Chandrashekhar Verma, husband of former Bihar Minister Manju Verma.

Ms. Verma had to resign as the State’s Social Welfare Minister after a report by a survey team from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) blew the lid off the horrors perpetrated upon the children in the shelter home.

The court reiterated its position of September 18 that the CBI team appointed by the then CBI Director Alok Verma would continue to probe the Muzaffarpur case. The court had on September 18 stayed an August 29 order of the Patna High Court to hand over the case to CBI Special Director R.K. Asthana. The High Court had given Mr. Asthana carte blanche to appoint a team. The High Court had expressed unhappiness at the lack of urgency in the work done by the team formed by Mr. Verma.

In fact, the stay order from the Supreme Court had come just 24 hours after the CBI was pulled up, on September 17, by the High Court for not handing over the baton to Mr. Asthana.

Incidentally, both Mr. Verma and Mr. Asthana have been divested of their positions in the CBI after the CVC and the government decided that their bitter personal feud was harming the credibility of the country’s premier investigating agency.