Judge 'jails' daughter, HC frees her

A 24-year-old law graduate, daughter of a judge in Bihar, was "freed" on Tuesday after being kept in "confinement" for nearly a month at her father’s residence.

The girl, Yashashwini, who graduated from Chanakya Law University in Patna, met the Chief Justice of the Patna High Court Justice Rajendra Menon on Tuesday and narrated her ordeal.

The chief justice asked the authorities concerned to accommodate the girl at the Chanakya Law University Guest House till the next date of hearing in July.

A division bench of the high court comprising the chief justice and Justice Rajeev Ranjan Prasad on Monday had taken cognisance of a report published in the legal portal ‘Bar & Bench’ which said that a law graduate Yashashwini, daughter of a judge, was confined and thrashed at her father’s residence in Khagaria.

Posted as District and Sessions judge at Khagaria, the judge, Shubhash Chandra Chourasia, was opposed to his daughter Yashashwini’s friendship with a Delhi-based Supreme Court lawyer Sidhartha Bansal.

Yashashwini met Bansal while doing her internship in Delhi. They then decided to get married.

Recently, Yashashwini was in Delhi to appear for the Delhi Judicial Services examination. Her mother, too, accompanied her to the national capital. However, one day before the examination, she saw her daughter talking to Bansal outside the hotel.

Infuriated, she returned to Bihar along with her daughter without allowing her to write the exam.

Yashashwini was not only confined in her room but was reportedly thrashed. According to the Bar & Bench, her mother made phone calls to Bansal and made him listen to her daughter’s screaming while thrashing her.

Bansal then reached Khagaria and met the district judge. The judge, however, told the lawyer that he was not opposed to inter-caste marriage but to become his son-in-law, he should be either a civil servant or a judge/judicial magistrate.

Shocked over the pre-condition, Bansal pleaded that he earned sufficient amount to lead a decent life with Yashashwini. But his pleas failed to cut much ice.

The young lawyer then met Bihar DGP K S Dwivedi, who, in turn, asked the Khagaria police to look into the matter.

Meanwhile, the Patna High Court took suo motu cognisance of the report in Bar & Bench and asked the Senior SP (SSP) of Patna to make arrangements so that the girl could be produced before the chief justice on Tuesday at 2.15 pm.