LAGATAR24 NETWORK
Ranchi, April 22: Hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Shivshankar Sharma against Chief Minister Hemant Soren, the Jharkhand High Court today sought report from the Registrar of Companies (ROC) about the shell companies in which the CM and his family members have allegedly invested and reply within two weeks.
The Court has also asked the petitioner to serve copy of the petition to ED.
The court has asked for the information of all the companies that have been listed in the petition. The matter was heard by a division bench comprising Chief Justice Dr. Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad of the High Court.
The court will hear this PIL again on May 13.
Sharma had filed a PIL in the Jharkhand High Court demanding CBI probe into the matter of disproportionate asset of Hemant Soren and his brother Basant Soren besides other associated with him including Ravi Kejriwal and Amit Agrawal.
The petitoner had alleged that asset has been amassed with the help of shell companies which are being run in other states including Jharkhand, Bihar and Bengal.
Advocate general Rajeev Ranjan confirmed the development but said the court while directing the RoC to probe the legality of cell companies asked to attach the record of a PIL (4218/2013) of similar nature which was filed by the same advocate on behalf of Diwan Indranil Sinha.
“80 percent of the documents used in present PIL was filed in 2013 PIL. The PIL was dismissed with cost of Rs 50000 by the division bench comprising R Bhanumati and D.N.Patel,” AG Ranjan said.
Asked why the court directed so, AG Ranjan said: “The petitioner’s lawyer while submitting before the court mentioned regarding the PIL but suppressed the fact that the PIL was dismissed. When the state mentioned the suppressed the fact the court gave the direction to attach the PIL with instant petition.
Court order in the matter is yet to uploaded in the website.
