By Arun Srivastava
Even while fighting the judicial onslaught against him and his government with his back to the wall, a group of senior leaders have initiated a move to replace Nitish Kumar. They fear that BJP will be the ultimate loser if it fights the 2019 polls under his captainship.
While these people cite the Supreme Court remarks against him in the Muzaffarpur shelter home scandal, a recent incident in which union minister of food processing Harsimrat Kaur Badal walked out from an event for the inauguration of a mega food park at Mansi in Khagaria district has simply worsened the situation.
During a spot tour of the project, which is being developed on a 70-acre plot, she found that work on the Rs 127-crore park — meant to house maize processing units — was incomplete and not a single industrial unit had come up there so far. As punishment, the minister stopped a Rs 50-crore grant due to the promoters, including Pristine Logistics, the company behind the mega food park. The central government has already given Rs 50 crore to the promoters previously for the work.
These leaders also feel that the move of party president Amit Shah to concede the demand of Lok Sabha seats of Nitish was not prudent. He could have waited for more time as Nitish was in the thick of the legal tangle. Many feel that he may also be summoned by the court to clarify his stand and the action he took to punish the criminals and guilty persons.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up the Bihar government over the alleged sexual abuse at shelter homes, saying the state had financed it in a way by giving public funds to the accused shelter homes. “Why did the state allow these to happen? The state gave funds… So in a way, the state financed these activities,” the court observed.
The apex court made it clear that Nitish has miserably failed to ensure rule of law. The state government had given the impression that there was only one shelter home. But later it transpired there were 17 such homes and all were involved in this obnoxious sex game. On November 29 the Supreme Court transferred all cases related to sexual abuses at the shelter homes to the CBI. Besides the Muzaffarpur case, 16 more cases will now be probed by the CBI. The top court has directed the investigating agency to the file status reports on January 31.
The seriousness of the situation could be seen from the fact that the Supreme Court has been regularly hearing the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape cases for the last one month. On several occasions the court accused the government of shoddy investigation and going slow against the accused, who are politically powerful people.
Indeed, it is a matter of shame that Nitish’s police did not file cases under the relevant law on allegations of unnatural sex assault on children at shelter homes. And this was pointed out by none else but the apex court. “The Bihar government has registered cases only for minimum offence. If you haven’t registered cases under 377, then how will you investigate?” said the bench comprising Justices Madan B Lokur, Deepak Gupta and Abdul Nazeer. “…Are we doing any favour to these children? Are they not citizens of this country,” the bench said. Though the Supreme Court has partially struck down Section 377, non-consensual sex and “carnal intercourse with children and animals” continue to be offences.
Over 40 young girls were sexually abused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home. The sexual exploitation of the girls was first highlighted in an audit report submitted by the Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS) to the state’s social welfare department in April. The first case was filed on May 31 against 11 people, including Brajesh Thakur, who ran the home.
The top court had on November 27 termed as “very shameful” and “inhuman” the conduct of the Bihar government in not taking appropriate action. It said that the state was “very soft” and “very selective” in registering FIRs against the perpetrators and had asked the state government whether these children were not the citizens of this country.
The Supreme Court gave the Nitish government 24 hours to add charges under Section 377 (rape) of the IPC and the POCSO Act in the FIRs. It asked the Nitish government “What are you (Bihar government) doing? It’s shameful. If the child is sodomised you say it’s nothing? How can you do this? It’s inhuman. We were told that matter will be looked with great seriousness, this is seriousness?” The top court added that it was “tragic” to go over the file of the case each time. (IPA Service)
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