PATNA: The Patna high court has rejected a petition for anticipatory bail filed by a suspended 2011-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Aditya Kumar and told him to surrender within the next four weeks. Kumar, who has been on the run since October 2022, sought the arrest shield, arguing that he was innocent and had been falsely implicated in a case.
“Considering the facts and circumstances of case as well as the fact that there are ample evidence against the petitioner, I am not inclined to enlarge the petitioner on anticipatory bail. The prayer for anticipatory bail of the petitioner is hereby rejected. However, if the petitioner surrenders before the court within four weeks and seek regular bail, the court would pass order in accordance with law without being prejudiced by this order,” justice Anjani Kumar Sharan said in an order dated March 21. The order was uploaded to the high court’s website on Friday.
Bihar’s economic offences unit registered a case against Kumar and four others on charges of cheating, impersonation, extortion and other offences in October last year. The FIR alleged that the suspects called the state police chief posing as chief justice of the Patna high court and asked him to close a case against Aditya Kumar related to accusations that he conspired with the liquor mafia when he was posted in Gaya as senior superintendent of police (SSP).
Justice Sharan also directed the registry to place a copy of the order before the high court’s chief justice on the administrative side with regard to two judicial officers who were allegedly found involved in the case and against whom “there is clinching evidence that they unsuccessfully tried to get the case of the petitioner listed in a particular bench”.
“It is high time for the court to take serious view of this matter on administrative side about the conduct of these two officers, which is unbecoming of Judicial Officers. Law treats all people in the same manner and does not change from person to person,” the court said.
“The judiciary is expected to remain unaffected by pressures exerted by other branches of the government, citizens or interested groups. Independence of the judiciary is one of the basic and inalienable features of the Constitution,” justice Sharan said in his order.
