Two lawyers & one employee of Kishanganj court found infected

PATNA: Two lawyers and one employee of Kishanganj civil court tested Covid-19 positive on Sunday. Their samples were collected three days back after two court employees had been found infected. One of them died on Friday on way to JLNMCH in Bhagalpur.
Kishanganj civil surgeon Dr S Mandal told TOI over phone that the three tested positive on Sunday included a court staff and a woman lawyer.“Samples of several civil court employees and lawyers were collected as per contact tracing and also as a precautionary measure,” Dr Mandal said. He said more samples would be collected as per necessity.
The physical functioning of Kishanganj civil court was earlier suspended till Wednesday, but looking at the present scenario, it might remain closed for some more time for precautionary measure and sanitization of the court campus. Only urgent matters would be taken up for hearing via videoconferencing till then.
Meanwhile, physical working of Patna civil court along with subdivisional courts at Danapur and Patna City would now remain suspended till Tuesday for sanitization after another court employee tested Covid-19 positive on Saturday.
Only very urgent matters would be taken up for hearing via videoconferencing by the judges from their respective residences.
All these courts have been closed since July 1 and were scheduled to reopen on Monday. A lawyer of Patna civil court had tested Covid-19 positive. He is a special public prosecutor for the state government.
The class-IV employee, who tested positive, is posted in the ADJ-I court at Danapur. He had actually come in contact with the infected lawyer of the civil court.
Patna district and sessions judge Rudra Prakash Mishra on Saturday issued orders for further suspending physical work of all the three courts for sanitization of courtrooms, offices and bar buildings.
Employees and lawyers at Danapur court have been urged to voluntarily come forward and inform authorities if any of them had come in contact with the lawyer as well as the staff infected. They should also go into self-quarantine for 14 days and get themselves tested for Covid-19.
3 jail inmates test positive: Three inmates of Kishanganj district jail have tested Covid-19 positive, Kishanganj civil surgeon Dr S Mandal said on Sunday. This is probably for the first time that Covid cases have been reported from a prison. Mandal said samples of 68 more inmates had been collected on Sunday. “All three have been shifted to Covid-19 centre in the district,” he said. Sources said the three were tested as they had come in contact with infected persons before being sent to jail. “They were already in the isolation ward of the jail,” a prison source said. He said in the first batch, 29 samples were collected from the jail on June 30, included that of 18 inmates and prison staff who had served them food. “Their test results came on July 3 and three were tested positive,” he said. “On Sunday, samples of 24 more prisoners and 44 jail employees were collected. The test results will come in three days,” he said.