IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA OCR. MISC (DB) No.2 of 2009 The State of Bihar Versus Contempt Proceeding Against Superintendent, Central Jail, Beur. ----------- 09. 30.06.2009 Heard learned counsel for the State of Bihar and learned counsel appearing for the contemnors, One of whom was the Superintendent of Central Jail, Beur during major part of the period when the accused was not produced in the concerned court which has made this reference. The other contemnor is the present Superintendent of Central Jail, Beur. After hearing the parties, we have no hesitation in holding that Para 929 of Bihar Jail Manual did not stand in the way of production of the concerned accused before the trial court at the stage of Section 313 of Cr.P.C. Reference of this provision to justify the action of not producing the accused before the trial court by the then Superintendent of Jail, Buxar was not correct and proper. However, there is substance in the defence of the then Superintendent of Jail, Beur that for major part of the period of non-production the accused was sent to Central Jail, Bhagalpur and kept there under the orders of the Home Department, Government of Bihar. On behalf of Government of Bihar, explanation has been forwarded that it had no knowledge that - 2 - there was an urgent need of producing the accused before trial court at Patna. On going through the relevant communication, we find that the State Government had the information about pendency of several criminal trials against the concerned accused at Patna. In that view of the matter, Home Department, Govt. of Bihar should have been more careful and should not have sent the concerned accused to Bhagalpur without proper verification of the status of those criminal cases and need to produce the accused for expeditious disposal of criminal trials. However, in the facts of the case, we do not find that any case has been made out against the contemnor for deliberate violation of court’s order hence the proceeding for contempt against the contemnors is dropped. This application is finally disposed of. Let a copy of this order be given to Mr. Rai Shivaji Nath, learned counsel for the State for communication to the Home Department for use in future. Vikash/- (Shiva Kirti Singh, ACJ.) (Anjana Prakash, J.)