Patna high court

PATNA: The Patna high court on Saturday took suo motu cognizance of a report published in online portal ‘Bar & Bench’ on June 22 regarding alleged confinement of a 24-year-old girl by her father, who is district and sessions judge of Khagaria. The case is listed for hearing by the division bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice Rajeev Ranjan Prasad on Monday.

According to the ‘Bar & Bench’ report, Yashaswini is a law graduate from Chanakya National Law University (CNLU) in Patna and she was allegedly thrashed and confined at her Khagaria residence by her father Subhash Chandra Chaurasia and other family members for her affair with one Siddharth Bansal, who is a Supreme Court advocate.

The report said both first met in 2012 at Saket court complex in Delhi during her internship. Yashaswini went to Delhi with her mother to appear for Delhi Judicial Services examination (held on May 6) and met Bansal outside her hotel on May 5. Somehow, her mother came to know about the affair and took Yashaswini back to Khagaria without appearing for the test.

On reaching Khagaria, the report said, the girl was thrashed and her parents made two calls to Bansal from Yashaswini’s cellphone in which he could hear her crying and getting thrashed. The report further said Bansal, along with his senior colleague, visited Khagaria last month and met her father, who told him to become either a civil servant or a judge to be eligible for marrying Yashaswini.

They had also met DGP K S Dwivedi to rescue the girl. When contacted, Dwivedi told TOI over the phone on Sunday that a Delhi advocate had met him at Begusarai during his review meeting last month to rescue the daughter of Khagaria district judge. “The advocate told me that his colleague had an affair with the district judge’s daughter and she was kept in confinement,” the DGP recalled.

“Incidentally, Khagaria SP Meenu Kumari was also present at the review meeting and I had asked her to look into the matter and also told the advocate to meet the SP,” Dwivedi said.

Khagaria SP Meenu Kumari could not be contacted as she is on leave.

Khagaria Women’s police station SHO Kiran Kumari said Bansal had submitted a written complaint to rescue the girl. “The complaint was forwarded to the district women’s help line for further action,” she said.

The SHO said she had visited the judge’s residence and met the girl. “The girl told me that she was happy. The girl had just returned from a tour and was likely to go on another trip,” the SHO added.

