The Patna high court on Thursday issued a directive for making the state government a respondent in a writ petition seeking CBI probe into the alleged excise scam.

A single bench presided by Justice Samarendra Pratap Singh asked the petitioner, Ajit Sarthi, to make the state government a respondent in the case. The petitioner had made the SP, CBI, Patna, a respondent in the writ petition seeking CBI investigation into the alleged excise scam. The issue was raised by former excise minister Jamshed Ashraf, who had written to the chief secretary and also the chief minister in this regard.

The petitioner submitted that the authorities in the excise department and the Bihar State Beverage Corporation had connived with the manufacturers of the Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) to the price in such a manner as to cause a huge loss of revenue to the state exchequer.

The officials concerned had enabled the manufacturers to fetch higher prices for the IMFL supply, the petitioner added.

Vigilance: The same bench dismissed a criminal writ petition of a section officer of public health and engineering department, Mukesh Kumar Chakariar, seeking quashing of a vigilance case against him regarding alleged fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 64 lakh as he was exonerated of the charges for the same offence in departmental proceedings.
The court held that the order for vigilance inquiry against a government official cannot be stopped even after the official concerned has been exonerated of charges in departmental proceedings.

Meanwhile, in another case the same bench dismissed the criminal writ petitions of two block supply officers Awadhesh Mishra and Narsingh Paswan and block inspector Shankar Ravidas, seeking quashing of the vigilance cases against them in public distribution system scam.