Summary:
PATNA: The Patna high court on Wednesday ordered the Patna University (PU) and district administration to flush out illegal occupants from the university hostels within two weeks.The court had turned the written complaint submitted by Vikash Chandra alias Guddu Baba into a PIL. The court rapped the PU authorities and asked why no FIR was lodged against illegal occupants and what restrained them from taking stern action against the encroachers. The complainant had submitted a news item published in a vernacular daily on August 1, 2016 about the recovery of explosives from Saidpur hostel of PU. The court fixed September 27 as the next date of hearing and asked the PU and district administration to clear all the hostels from illegal occupants.Earlier also, the high court had rapped the PU authorities and district administration several times on the issue. Chandra had apprised the court that explosives were also recovered from Minto hostel in May last year and later on January 17 this year and also from the Iqbal hostel.The PU on Wednesday submitted a counter affidavit before the division bench of Chief Justice M R Shah and Justice Ashutosh Kumar and accepted that unauthorized people were living in four out of the 28 PU hostels.PU counsel Vivekananda Prasad Singh submitted that 46 out of the 52 rooms of Law College hostel, 86 out of more than 180 rooms in BN College hostel, 29 out of 53 rooms in Rani Ghat hostel and 28 out of the 52 rooms in Hathua hostels were encroached by unidentified people and antisocial elements.That irked the court which observed that the university had failed to safeguard the interest of the students as well as its properties..