Patna, May 23 (IANS) The Patna High Court Friday directed the state government to fix a date for jailed Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) parliamentarian Mohammed Shahabuddin to be taken All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi for medical treatment. A division bench comprising Justices Shivkirti Singh and Jay Nandan Singh directed the government to inform the court about the date for sending Shahabuddin to AIIMS by June 23, and also directed this should not affect his trial.

Shahabuddin was arrested in 2005 and spent nearly a month in AIIMS in 2006 for a back surgery. He now needs follow-up medical treatment, he told the court.

The court rejected Shahabuddin’s bail plea in yet another case relating to seizure of foreign currencies and a telescope from his house in Pratappur village in Siwan district in 2005.

Last year, the Patna High Court directed that a special court inside Siwan jail should try all cases pending against him.

The RJD leader was convicted for the first time in March 2007, for his role in an attack on the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (CPI-ML) office in Siwan in 1998.

In May 2007, the special court sentenced him to life imprisonment for the kidnapping and murder of Chhote Lal Gupta, a CPI-ML worker, in 1999.

In August 2007, he was sentenced to 10 years in jail for attacking then Siwan Superintendent of Police S.K. Singhal in 1996.

A Lok Sabha member from Siwan since 1996, Shahabuddin is involved in 40 criminal cases including murder, abduction and possession of illegal arms.