High court stays confiscation of former DGP's assets

PATNA: The Patna high court on Wednesday granted relief to former DGP Narayan Mishra by staying the vigilance court's order of February 1 to confiscate his assets which were allegedly disproportionate to his known sources of income. The order was passed by a single bench of the high court presided over by Justice Mandhata Singh.
The special vigilance judge, Ramesh Chandra, had earlier ordered the Patna DM to confiscate the assets of Mishra and his five family members, who have been charged with accumulating unaccounted assets worth Rs 1.4 crore.The vigilance court had ordered confiscation of the assets of Mishra, his wife Kanchan Mishra, two sons Satyabrat Mishra and Subrat Mishra and two daughters-in-law Pooja Mishra and Rita Mishra within one month of the receipt of the court directive. This was challenged by Mishra in Patna high court.
It may be recalled that a DA case was lodged by the special vigilance unit (SVU) against Mishra in 2007. His unaccounted assets included a four-storied building at Rukunpura, Patna, a flat at Rukunpura along with a plot measuring 1,352 sq ft, two plots each of 5,440 sq ft at Nepali Nagar in Digha, Patna, and two plots of 21.5 decimals at Hazaribagh in Jharkhand. The vigilance unit had also found that Mishra was investing in stocks and shares in a big way.
Mishra, a native of Odisha and a 1969-batch IPS officer, was the state DGP in 2004-05 during RJD regime. He was the sixth serving public servant against whom the process of confiscation of disproportionate assets was initiated under the Bihar Special Courts Act, 2009.