PATNA: In a huge relief to CM Nitish Kumar just before the Lok Sabha polls, the Patna high court on Friday quashed the cognizance taken against him by ACJM court in Barh in a 28 year old murder case of Sitaram Singh. With this exoneration, Nitish has now no criminal case pending against him.A bench of Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah, while terming the prosecution against Kumar as malafied, untenable and solely intended to harass the petitioner, quashed the entire criminal proceeding arising out of the complaint case filed before the ACJM court against Nitish.Justice Amanullah imposed a token cost of Rs 1,000 on intervener petitioner cum Sitaram’s younger brother Radhakrishna Singh for adopting tactics to delay court proceedings on the issue.Sitaram was shot dead in Dibhar middle school premises under Pandarak police station area in Barh during voting on November 16, 1991.His brother Rajaram Singh, cousin Ashok Singh along with Suresh Singh , Mauli Singh, Mannu Singh and Rambabu had received injuries.Rajaram had recorded his statement before police against Kumar, then Mokama MLA Dilip Singh, Dular Chand Yadav, Yogendra Yadav , Baudhu Yadav, Shiv Narayan Yadav and others on basis of which an FIR was registered against them. Nitish, then was a candidate of Janta Dal.Police later filed chargesheet against three except Nitish and Dular as no evidence was found for their involvement in case. Police, in chargesheet had also mentioned that though allegation against rest were found to be true but there was inadequate evidences against them.The matter kept lingering before ACJM court until August 5, 2008 when it finally took cognizance over chargesheet.Later Ashok filed a protest-cum-complaint petition against Nitish and Dular on January 20, 2009 on which ACJM court took cognizance against them on August 31, 2009. Cognizance was taken even after high court had stayed court proceedings over the murder case on April 22, 2009.Nitish and Yogendra had moved high court on separate occasions for quashing of cognizance taken against them by the ACJM court though the complaint case and charesheet respectively. Hearing on Yogendra’s petition is presently going on before high court.The bench, while quashing proceedings, observed fact that Ashok had filed petition even when deceased’s family members were not having any grievance against police’s chargesheet and moreover, he did not have any locus standi not being the informant.Justice Amanullah had also observed that complaint petition was filed by Ashok suddenly after 16 years of filing of chargesheet and several months after cognizance was taken over it by court.He also observed in judgement that Ramnanand Singh and Kailu Mahto, who had deposed before ACJM court on basis of which cognizance was taken against Nitish, had later given a statement before magistrate that they were neither witness to the murder case and had deposed on behest of other persons.“As such, the Court has no hesitation to record a finding that the Protest-cum-Complaint Petition itself was mala fide, frivolous, mischievous, without any basis and in fact, totally false and fabricated,” Justice Amanullah observed in his judgement.

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