IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA MJC No.1795 of 2010 Pawan Kumar Jha, son of Late Sonelal Jha, resident of village-Surajpur, Police Station Tajpur (Halai O.P.) District-Samastipur at present Sarpanch Gram Panchayat Raj Sarangpur, Pachhimi in the District of Samastipur. ………Petitioner. Versus 1. The State of Bihar. 2. Asangwa Chuwa Aao, District Magistrate, Samastipur. 3. Lalit Kumar Rajak, District Education Officer, Samastipur. ……..Opposite parties. ----------- 4 30.9.2010 Heard the parties. This Court had issued direction to the District Magistrate, Samastipur to conduct an enquiry with the help and assistance of District Education Officer, Samastipur to find out the status of the land belonging to Government High School situated at village Surajpur in the district of Samastipur in view of a grievance raised in public interest that 18 bighas of land belonging to that school have been allowed to be sold by unauthorized persons and have been illegally occupied or grabbed. Learned counsel for the State has placed reliance upon a letter from the District Education - 2 - Officer, Samastipur dated 28th April, 2010 (Annexure-B to the show-cause of O.P. No.2), which is addressed to District Magistrate, Samastipur. As per that letter it has been found that two bighas of land of the school is in occupation of one Raj Kumar Jha who has obtained order in his favour from the civil court and the name and address of another person namely Dilip Kumar Jha has been mentioned with an indication that he has got 7 ½ bighas of land illegally through sale deed executed by seven persons whose names are also mentioned. Annexure-C discloses that Incharge Deputy Collector District Legal Division, Samastipur has written to Government Advocate, Samastipur on 03.05.2010 seeking legal opinion as to what action can be taken in the matter against persons illegally encroaching upon or dealing with the property of the government school. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the report of the District Education Officer is not complete. According to him, 18 bighas of land of the school have been illegally sold by same persons in favour of others with a view to grab those lands. - 3 - In our view, the District Magistrate, Samastipur should allow the petitioner to participate in a further enquiry in to the matter to be conducted either by the District Magistrate or any other officer authorized by him. In that enquiry the petitioner would be at liberty to bring all the facts and documents to the knowledge of the authorities to enable them to take legal action in the matter. This should be done within a period of three months from today provided petitioner appears with a copy of this order before the District Magistrate, Samastipur within one month. This contempt application is disposed of with the aforesaid observation and directions. sk/pn (Shiva Kirti Singh, J.) ( Hemant Kumar Srivastava, J.)