Patna: Ajay Kumar Srivastava, additional district and sessions judge (I), Siwan, who was conducting trial in cases involving Mohammad Shahabuddin, has been transferred to Patna.

The high court acceded to his request for a transfer after two tries by Srivastava. Now, he has been posted as additional district and sessions judge, Patna. Srivastava's court had in December 2015 awarded life imprisonment to Shahabuddin in the killing of two brothers by acid bath in 2004.

Srivastava was transferred on September 9. It came two days after Patna High Court granted gangster-politician Shahabuddin bail in the murder case of Rajiv Roshan, a witness to the killings of his two brothers - Satish Raj and Girish Raj - at the behest of Shahabuddin. The former MP stepped out of jail after 11 years on September 10.

The additional district and sessions judge had in April urged the high court to transfer him from Siwan. The petition was rejected. He approached the high court for a second time after Shahabuddin got bail, and the high court transferred him.

Though Srivastava's transfer is being called a routine exercise, he has been transferred before his scheduled three-year tenure. He was made additional district and sessions judge, Siwan, on August 8, 2014.

A legal expert in Siwan said: "An additional district and sessions judge has a tenure of three years, before which s/he is usually not transferred. However, it is the prerogative of the high court to transfer one before the fixed tenure but that too in rare circumstances."

Srivastava is due to retire on November 30, 2023.

After Shahabuddin's release, Siwan DM Mahendra Kumar and SP Saurav Kumar Shah had sent a report to the government, apprehending law and order problems in Siwan. In the past three days, two murders have been reported in Siwan.

Cops have tightened security in Siwan town with officers deployed at the house of Chandrakeshwar Prasad, father of the three brothers killed allegedly killed at the instance of Shahabuddin.

JDU spokesperson Ajay Alok accepted there was an atmosphere of terror in Siwan but insisted the government would provide adequate security to judges. BJP spokesperson Vinod Narayan Jha asked what would be the fate of witnesses in cases connected to Shahabuddin.

-The Telegraph, Calcutta