Bihar: Two more judicial officers succumb to Covid-19, toll rises to five

PATNA: The number of judicial officers succumbing to Covid-19 has gone up to five in the state with a family court principal judge losing his life after battling the virus for almost a week at a hospital in Patna on Tuesday. The news of his death came to the public domain only on Wednesday.
The deceased senior judge, Durgesh Mani Tripathy, aged around 57 years, was posted in Muzaffarpur on January 13 this year.He was initially undergoing treatment at a hospital in Muzaffarpur from where he was shifted to a private hospital in Patna where he breathed his last. The judge was a native of Baria in the Kushinagar district of Uttar Pradesh.
Senior lawyer Yogesh Chandra Verma, who is the coordination committee chairman of all three lawyers’ association of the high court, on Wednesday said more than 100 lawyers across Bihar have succumbed in the past one month.
“At least 15 to 20 lawyers of the high court are among the deceased. From whichever district across the state I sought information, death reports of at least two to three lawyers from each of them have been received till now,” Verma said, adding more than a thousand lawyers across the state are infected with the Covid-19 virus.
Apart from judge Tripathy, a young judicial magistrate Deepak Kumar posted in Khagaria also died of Covid-19 after remaining under treatment for several days at a private hospital in Patna.
Before them, an additional district and sessions judge Piyush Kumar Srivastava posted at Sasaram died on April 30. He was the nephew of Justice Hemant Kumar Srivastava of Patna high court who retired on February 1 this year.
Earlier, an additional chief judicial magistrate Amit Kumar posted at Patna civil court also died of Covid-19 at a private hospital in Patna on April 26.
Railway Magistrate Manish Kumar posted at Kiul in Lakhisarai was the first Bihar subordinate judicial service officer who succumbed to the second wave of Covid-19 at a private hospital in Patna on April 20.
An assistant registrar of the high court, Anand Kishore, also lost his life in Patna on Tuesday night. He was under treatment for almost a month during which he was admitted to two different hospitals in the state capital.
Kishore is the seventh HC staff to succumb in Covid-19 second wave. Before him, assistant registrar Gagan Mishra, deputy registrar Nasimul Hoda, section officer Rakesh Priyadarshi, assistant section officer Saira Begum, an assistant Mayank Singh and a woman peon Praniya Devi lost their lives.