22-yr-old in 1960 receiving freedom fighters’ benefits

patna: a division bench of the patna high court comprising chief justice ravi s dhavan and justice shashank k singh on thursday resumed hearing in the pil relating to people falsely claiming participation in the freedom struggle and thereby getting pension and other benefits fraudulently. lawyer r n thakur narrated the case of a man who gave evidence in a court of law claiming that he was of 22-year-old in 1960, but despite that was getting the pension.thakur said that government doctors had found him to be between 55 and 60 years in 1998. however, government counsel r k dutta informed the court that the man in question had come to the court once when called by it, but had run away out of fear. non-release of funds: a division bench of the high court comprising chief justice ravi s dhavan and justice shashank k singh on thursday expressed displeasure over the non-release of money meant for the panchayat bodies in the state. the court was clearly not satisfied with the government not releasing the fund in spite of its repeated directives and observations. m p gupta, appearing for the bihar rajya panchayati parishad, said the government has been mouthing platitudes, but in reality no money had been released to these bodies. in a short while, the money may also lapse on account of the end of the financial year, he added. he submitted that the government had not formed the state financial commision as yet. government counsel alamdar hussain, who has been arguing for the government, however, found himself in a tight position on thursday, when he said the government had already formed a state finance commission headed by d p maheshwari. he, however, fumbled when he was asked about its members. munna shukla denied bail: the bail petition of independent mla from lalganj, vijay kumar shukla alias munna shukla, currently in muzaffarpur central jail, was rejected by the subdivisional judicial magistrate, d k pandey, here on thursday. shukla is an accused in the brij bihari murder case. in another case, the district and sessions judge, patna, sadanand mukherjee, rejected the bail petition of retired district judge mudr-ika prasad, his wife, son and daughter in a case related to the dowry death of his daughter-in-law anita.