Patna: A Bihar judge ordered a senior police official to measure the time it took him to travel from his home to the court after the judge was delayed in traffic. The officer was quick to do so and escaped the wrath of the court.
The incident occurred after Patna High Court judge Chakradhari Sharan Singh reached his office about an hour late on Friday owing to a traffic jam on the main road.
This was the second time that the judge was late for work on a road that normally takes him less than 15 minutes to get to court.
According to reports, the enraged judge immediately called up Patna city’s Superintendent of Police and requested the traffic police officer responsible assigned to the road he uses to get to work.
The officer was instructed make his way to the judge’s house and report back to the judge on time it took him to get there and back.
The officer quickly complied and immediately reported to the judge on his return.
“Sir, it took me 15 minutes to come to the court from your home,” he told the judge.
Not satisfied with the officer’s response, the judge expressed his annoyance over the illegal encroachments along the main road and demanded to know when they would be removed. He only allowed the officer to go upon getting an assurance that they would be removed “soon”.
Earlier, another sitting judge Rakesh Kumar expressed his displeasure at the government’s failure to ensure smooth traffic flow on the road. This was after he found himself caught in a traffic jam following a shutdown call issued by Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) to pressure New Delhi to release the results of its caste-based census. The incident took place in July 2015.
Irked at the delay in getting to the court, the judge later directed Bihar’s chief secretary to file an affidavit stating whether the RJD shutdown had the support of the state government.
